Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to support Deputy Wallace in this Second Stage debate on the Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution (Peace and Neutrality) Bill 2014, which seeks to affirm Ireland's neutral status by adherence to the provisions of the 1907 Hague Convention (V), Respecting the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land. It is a very basic public policy requirement for the management of the foreign affairs of this State. I was also glad to support recently the Neutrality Bill put forward by Deputy Seán Crowe. That Bill was voted down by the Government and I hope the same fate does not befall Deputy Wallace's Bill today. Since we discussed Deputy Crowe's Private Member's Bill, we have heard the President of the European Commission calling for the development of a European army to be specifically directed against Russia. That was followed up by comments from the German defence Minister, Ms Ursula von der Leyen, to the effect that our future as Europeans would include a European army. Elements of the German media, like Welt am Sonntag, have argued that a European army is a European vision whose time has come. We have a lot of movement on that front on the one hand, while on the other hand we can see that the crazy war crimes of the Iraq adventure by George Bush and Tony Blair have resulted in the US, Britain and other countries, including Ireland, being dragged into the horrendous situations in Iraq, Syria, Libya and more recently, Yemen. A focus of this has been the rise in Sunni-inspired extremism, largely motivated by the medieval regime of Saudi Arabia and similar states. In Yemen today we see that struggle bringing desolation and horror to the people of the cities of the Yemeni Republic, as Shia and Sunni sectarianism is acted out.

Almost 12 years ago I supported, along with my then Labour Party colleagues, a Neutrality Bill proposed by the Sinn Féin party which called for the principle of neutrality to be inserted into the Irish Constitution. Deputy Wallace's Bill goes further and provides that our neutral status shall be affirmed by adherence to the provisions of the 1907 Hague Convention (V), Respecting the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land. The enactment of this Bill would mean that neutrality would be enshrined in our Constitution by way of referendum and only a referendum of our citizens could reverse that. It would no longer be, as so many previous Ministers have said, including the former Leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Gilmore, simply a matter of policy.

The Minister of State referred to the evolution of the Hague principles. If one looks back to the nineteenth century, one sees that there was a very well thought-out effort by those who wanted to have a peaceful world to produce international legislation which would protect neutral states and, as far as possible, move towards banning war outright. These efforts can be seen in the Geneva Convention in 1864 through to the Brussels Declaration in 1874. At around the time of the development of the Geneva Convention, the Lieber Code, which later became part of the Hague Convention (V), was signed by US President Abraham Lincoln in the context of hostilities during the American Civil War. The first Hague Convention was signed in 1899 and the second in 1907. They were intended to be international treaties outlining the laws on wars and war crimes.

The Hague Convention (V), which Deputy Wallace is trying to insert into our Constitution through this Bill, reads very forcefully to the current generation. Article 1 holds that "The territory of neutral Powers is inviolable", while Article 2 holds that "Belligerents are forbidden to move troops or convoys of either munitions of war or supplies across the territory of a neutral Power". Article 5 holds that "A neutral Power must not allow any of the acts referred to in Articles 2 to 4 to occur on its territory". The convention has enormous relevance and it is astonishing that this country does not adhere to it. The Minister of State has not given an acceptable explanation as to why that is the case today and why we cannot simply proceed with Deputy Wallace's very thoughtful legislation and put it to the people.

The efforts of those who wanted to promote peace in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were devastated by the epoch of the two world wars.

Some 80 million people were slaughtered. Only in recent days people may have read about the devastation that was wreaked on the women of Germany by the brutal and savage behaviour of some of the allied troops invading from the western side. We have known for many years about the devastation that was wreaked on the women of Germany in particular by troops who arrived from the eastern side and obviously terrible crimes had been committed by the fascist regime, but it is astonishing that we are still hearing about the terrible reverberations of the horrors inflicted in the period of the First and Second World Wars and how ordinary men and women suffered so desperately. Clearly, this convention was completely obliterated from point of view of the innocent Belgian population when Germany invaded Belgium.

The Nuremberg trials codified that the Hague convention must be followed by countries, regardless of whether they had signed it. It is striking that the Minister makes that point about the 33 countries. Deputy Wallace specifically links Ireland's neutrality to Hague Convention (V), relating to the rights and duties of neutral powers. Under the convention Ireland would be protected from the acts of belligerents, who would be forbidden to move troops or convoys across the territory. The various chapters and articles of the convention outline very comprehensively what Ireland's neutrality would entail. In an answer in 2013 to a parliamentary question from Deputy Thomas Pringle, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Gilmore, stated that Ireland is not a party to the Hague Convention (V) and that there were no plans for it to become one. He went on to say that military neutrality would remain a linchpin of our foreign policy for the foreseeable future.

The reality is, as Deputies Wallace and Daly have graphically outlined in relation to the use of Shannon, that neutrality has been compromised very severely and very seriously. It is no longer sufficient just to trust the Government of the day to deliver that policy of neutrality. It is the wish of the Irish people. I paid tribute before to the Trojan work of a colleague of ours, Mr. Roger Cole, and the PANA organisation and the campaign PANA has waged over almost 20 years to have a piece of legislation like Deputy Wallace's inserted into the Constitution. I said during the debate on Deputy Crowe's Bill that I think we are coming closer to that time now and that the aim of PANA will be realised.

I mentioned in a speech a few weeks ago the attachment of the Irish nation to neutrality, given our history. The founder of the socialist and social democratic tradition in our country, James Connolly, was a ferocious opponent of the lunacy that led to the First World War and to the European elites consigning 80 million people to death and desolation. On Sunday week, we will hopefully be able to salute the successors of Óglaigh na hÉireann on the 99th anniversary of the Easter Rising. In many ways, one can look on that historic event as a ferocious determination to break away from the militarism of the British empire and its determination to prevent a viable independent sovereign state emerging on this island. The Bill before us is part of the architecture that Ireland needs to have. In that context, I warmly congratulate Deputy Wallace and hope to vote for the Bill whenever I get a chance.

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