Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

They will identify the United States all of the time. That is fine. I do not believe US foreign policy is correct in all areas, but I recognise the huge Irish-American diaspora. I do not believe in boycotting Hewlett-Packard or Intel. The Deputies opposite would cause the loss of thousands of jobs in this country, if their reckless policies were pursued. I do not believe in doing that. I do not believe that United Nations Security Council members should have a veto on our participation in peacekeeping. This is not in any shape or form an attempt to disengage from the UN. It is, rather, the opposite. It will allow Ireland to continue to seek to improve the UN from within, while addressing the fact that our involvement in international peacekeeping can currently be held hostage by the veto-wielding power of any one of the five permanent UN Security Council members.

Second, the Government has real concerns about the proposal to hold a referendum enshrining neutrality in the Constitution. The policy of military neutrality always has been, and remains, a deliberate policy choice on the part of successive Governments since the Second World War. However, the motion, if passed, would seriously constrain the Executive’s ability to exercise its policy-making authority in the conduct of external relations, as already set out in Article 29 of the Constitution. Indeed, we know from previous experience that inserting overly simplistic provisions into the Constitution on sensitive and complex issues does not serve the State well. I have yet to see any proposed wording about an insertion or amendment on what form of neutrality-----

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