Ms Lynn Boylan:

I thank the Cathaoirleach for the invitation to participate today. I will focus on the wider EU policy context and what the proposed abolition of the triple lock means in such a context.

Ireland is a small neutral state with a long proud record of peacekeeping. In fact, we are the only nation to have a continuous presence on UN and UN-mandated peace support operations since 1958. Within the EU, there is no doubt that there has been an increasing push for militarisation. Recently, we had the ReArm Europe-Readiness 2030 agenda, a White Paper on the future of European defence outlining the EU policy and legislative agenda for European defence.

However, predating this latest posturing by EU leaders, we had the European Defence Fund, EDF. This was established in 2017 with a budget of €7.3 billion for the period from 2021 to 2027. This fund is for the purpose of funding defence industry research, capability development and contributing to EU defence interests in line with the Common Security and Defence Policy, CSDP. It also is worth noting that a recent investigative journalism report found that a subsidiary of Israeli Aerospace Industries, which is an Israeli state-owned drone manufacturer, benefited from at least €15 million in public funding from the EDF. The adoption of the Act in Support of Ammunition Production, ASAP, in 2023 saw €500 million of public money going to arms companies to increase their production capability.

There has been much discussion about sovereignty in this debate but it has all focused on the UN. I agree that the UN needs reform but as the UN is also under incredible political pressure and is being undermined by various actors, now is not the time to weighing in and pulling away support for the UN. We must be very clear that while we are focused on the issue of sovereignty when it comes to the UN, the European Commission and its militarisation agenda are actively eroding the sovereignty of member states. The mechanisms used under the treaties for the adoption of ASAP and more recently the SAFE regulation, namely, Articles 122 and 173 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, TFEU, are not compliant with the provisions of Article 41.2 of the Treaty on European Union, TEU.

Article 41.2 requires that expenditure from the European Union budget for the purposes of operations with a military or defence implication are prohibited without unanimity at the Council. The legal inconsistency has been highlighted in the case of ASAP by the previous Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach, and more recently in the Bundestag. Moreover, even the President of the European Parliament has highlighted similar concerns in relation to the SAFE regulation and bypassing the scrutiny of the Parliament and Council.

I highlight this because in the context where we are giving any future government a huge amount of scope to deploy Irish soldiers in EU missions, we also have a European Commission that is not abiding by the treaties, is not abiding by international law in terms of Israel and is increasingly violating the principle of subsidiarity and sovereignty when it comes to the defence policy of member states. Recently, we have seen Spain publicly admonished for daring to say that it would not cut social welfare spending to reach a threshold of 5% of GDP military expenditure. While this was in the context of NATO, it is also important to note that the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, makes no distinction between NATO and the EU.

The triple lock, I believe, affords Ireland a firewall that protects from this ever-increasing EU shift to militarisation. Ireland will be taking up the European Presidency next year and will come under enormous pressure to play ball and, like the Spanish Government, to not resist this push for militarisation. The triple lock gives the Government a firewall to point to, that it has a mandate to represent Ireland as a neutral state.

There has been a growth in the deployment of EU military missions under the CSDP since they began over 20 years ago. These missions are in stark contrast to UN peacekeeping missions. They often take place in the former colonies of European countries, such as in the Sahel region, and are not subject to the scrutiny of the European Parliament, national parliaments, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Auditors or to the European Convention on Human Rights.

UN missions, on the other hand, will have had a huge amount of preparatory work through a technical field assessment of the overall security, political, military, humanitarian and human rights situation on the ground. The General Assembly then plays a key role in monitoring the ongoing missions and making sure they are fulfilling their objectives. There has been no explanation of how this work will be replaced by either the EU or the Irish Government. This is particularly relevant to head 6 of the Bill, which uses the phrase “strengthening international security ... consistent with the principles of the United Nations Charter” and “maintenance of international peace and security in conformity with the principles of justice and international law”. This language comes directly from Article 42.1 of the Treaty on European Union but has not been applied in a manner consistent with the UN Charter. Instead, it has sought to protect the interests of EU countries in the global south in a highly extractive and neocolonial manner.

I wish to highlight further examples that illustrate the shifting EU policy towards militarisation and direct public funding, by Irish citizens, of arms companies that are enjoying record profits. The Commission has recently proposed to allow cohesion funds to be used for military expenditure. That is funding that in the past was used to build our road networks and that should be used for other countries to develop their infrastructure. Ireland is a net contributor to that fund. That fund now can be used for military expenditure. The European Commission has also confirmed that defence spending will be categorised as sustainable finance, thereby allowing weapons companies to compete for finance with companies and small and medium enterprises that are actively trying to combat climate change, and we know climate change is a security threat. The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, accepted that fact at the UN.

I thank the committee for allowing me to present today and have included a supplementary paper with more details and references on the issues I have provided in the opening statement.