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

I have a simple question: will we get a constitutional referendum on neutrality? The Government likes to talk of the need for a public debate on neutrality. It has a ready-up system of forums on international security policy, led by a dame of the British Empire who has publicly come out in support of the US invasion of Afghanistan and US coups in Chile, Cuba and Nicaragua. The Tánaiste has spoken of the need for a debate that is not about a binary issue, so not neutrality or militarism, but some secret third thing, which I suspect is militarism and alignment, bit by bit, with NATO.

We disagree on this. There is no question that the Taoiseach would like to abandon neutrality, though he might not want to put it in those terms. Does he accept that the people should have the right to decide this and that any change to our policy of neutrality must be put to the people in a referendum? Our preferred option to do that is to enshrine neutrality in the Constitution.

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