Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, has said that moving away from the triple lock on Irish neutrality would be "a sensible change". He and Fine Gael claim this is in response to Putin's disgusting invasion of Ukraine. The truth is that Fine Gael has been pushing for this for decades. In 2003, it produced a policy document, Beyond Neutrality, that supported moving towards participation in a common EU defence policy and abandoning the triple lock, which it described as a political straitjacket. Fine Gael has been trying to erode what is left of neutrality for decades and is opportunistically using Putin's invasion of Ukraine to do so. In fairness, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has at least stated that his position is the triple lock should remain. What is the Taoiseach's position? He did not answer the earlier question. He made a vague reference to the UN General Assembly but it is the UN Security Council that agrees on the deployment of peacekeeping missions. Does he support the retention of the triple lock or not? If he does not, will he at least give us a referendum on it?

See this speech in context