Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Interestingly, in the report on the service of members of the Defence Forces with the UN, which one of the motions proposes to accept, rather than giving us an outline - although you pay tribute to them, which I welcome - and highlight the fantastic peacekeeping work they do and the lives they have saved, almost two pages of your speech tonight were devoted to the triple lock. You refer to the consultative committee. You used that report on our peacekeeping forces serving abroad to tell us about how we should get rid of the triple lock. You put in the consultative forum, which was a packed body. Notwithstanding that it was a packed body, it still did not give you the answer you wanted. The answer was that there is absolutely no appetite for losing our neutrality. You take the opportunity in the report which you do not take in your speech. You tell us the consultative forum took place when it did and that there was detailed and well-informed discussion, which I agree with. You go on to talk about the triple lock and so on. That is in the report, and it should not be there at all. I would say straight, on the record, when we talk about combating disinformation, there is an onus on us to tell the truth. We can disagree with each other.

Let me look at what the Tánaiste's party has said: "Fianna Fáil is dedicated to Ireland’s policy of military neutrality. It is a policy which we have pursued both in government and out of it, and it has ... key defining [features]", "Fianna Fáil reaffirms its commitment to the retention of the Triple Lock", and so on. Forgive me if I cannot go into it. It was in your manifesto. I am not taking it out of sync. That was in 2020.

Let us go back to 2013, courtesy of People Before Profit, who tabled a very good motion recently and took the trouble of outlining the background. The Tánaiste said in 2013 that the triple lock was at the core of our neutrality and described the attempt to undermine it as an out-of-touch ideological obsession on the part of Fine Gael. Of course, there is no difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael now so I can see why you might have changed. I would certainly welcome it if the Tánaiste would use the opportunity to tell us what has led him to abandon that very strong position and tell us the triple lock has nothing to do with our neutrality, notwithstanding that we signed various declarations and different names given to them. The Government forced the people to vote twice for Nice and twice for Lisbon on the guarantee that our neutrality would not be touched. You come before us in this manner. I agree with what Deputy Paul Murphy said, although I do not like the image of the frog being boiled. That is exactly what is happening here. Bit by bit, you are taking from our neutrality. It is insulting to do it do us. We have an obligation as parliamentarians, as Deputy Howlin has said, to analyse whether we agree with each other, and to have a detailed report from a committee that helps us to understand why we now need to get rid of the triple lock.

Up to very recently, the Minister never quoted anybody but Russia. I have deplored Russia's invasion of Ukraine so I can adopt the high moral ground here. There was never a condemnation of America's use of the veto, which I understand is on a parallel with Russia. I have condemned Hamas, but there is no condemnation of Israel in the report. The Minister mentioned Hamas and spoke about the security situation changing and how Hamas has been singled out.

Is the Minister in a position to tell me how many people have been slaughtered in Palestine up to now? Perhaps he has the up-to-date figures from a government that is utterly out of control, a rogue government that is before the International Court of Justice for genocide. We are supporting that, through von der Leyen and Government MEPs who said before they were elected they would not support it.

The Minister sounds like Pat Rabbitte in days gone by who said promises are what we do before an election and after an election the real world takes over. I stand here proudly and tell the Minister that our voice should be used for peace and we should retain our neutrality and the triple lock. We should use the General Assembly. I am not ashamed to say that I am absolutely appalled by the military direction in which Europe is going. Almost 14,000 people are homeless and we are now agreeing with von der Leyen to put millions, if not billions, into the industrial military complex which will lead to more deaths. I unashamedly stand here and say I will not support either of these motions.

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