Mr. Ciarán Murphy:

I tend to agree with Professor Tonra. As I said in my opening statement, when the originators of the triple lock drafted the legislation and introduced it to the Oireachtas and it was debated and passed by the Oireachtas, the view was that it was the role of Dáil Éireann to protect Ireland's neutrality and make sure any overseas deployment was consistent with national foreign and security policy and Irish interests. The UN Security Council resolution was seen as a threat that could drag Ireland into wars it did not want to participate in by virtue of the obligations of membership. We need to put the trust back in this House. There is a significant role for this committee in interrogating defence officials, defence Ministers and defence policy. That has not been a role. In my 15 years as policy director, I appeared once before the defence committee on matters of defence policy. The Minister had been waiting three years to get an invite to the committee, despite lobbying the committee, which Ministers never do, to appear before it.