John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

The Minister must agree that the days when we made our own foreign policy are long gone, given that we have long since been part of a common foreign and security policy. That is fact. The Minister made an interesting distinction between mutual defence and common defence in his reply. If we are part of a mutual defence arrangement under Article 40.7, the Minister must agree that it would be strange for us to say to an EU partner which is the victim of armed aggression that we cannot go to its assistance, although we are part of a mutual defence pact, because we do not have a UN mandate as required by procedure in our country. Although I support the triple-lock mechanism, does the Minister agree that it seems to be incompatible with that provision in the long term?

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