Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Tánaiste talks about respect and trust. That is exactly what the people of Ireland do not have for on in him. There has been a carefully choreographed campaign to get rid of our neutrality. The current Taoiseach, back in 2013, clearly spelled out what Fine Gael was up to. At that point, we were told the triple lock was an integral part of our neutrality and so on. You have turned language on its head. If you want respect and trust, then you should have done what you promised in respect of neutrality and let it go to a citizens' assembly. That did not happen. What we got was Dame Richardson in charge of a carefully choreographed, so-called consultative forum, and even then the people of Ireland made their views known and the vast majority said we hold neutrality dear.

Now you have come back with this. It is one of the clearest objectives in the programme for Government. As opposed to the other wishy-washy language, you will change the triple lock and you are changing the triple lock against the wishes of the people of Ireland.

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