Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

That comment really is beneath the Minister of State. He knows well we have always been strongly supportive of the European Union. There is no question on that. It is really just a distraction tactic. The heart of this is in the Minister of State's speech, where he keeps talking about reform of the triple lock. This Government is not reforming the triple lock. That is what it said it would do in its manifesto. It is abolishing the triple lock, going from a situation where there are safeguards in place to one where the Cabinet of the day can effectively decide whether to send Irish young people abroad into a war zone. That is what this is about. The Minister of State can talk about reform all he likes. That was the promise given to the electorate. The Government is abolishing the triple lock and has not given good justifications for it. The Minister of State is engaging in distraction tactics.

I want to agree with the Minister of State's comments thanking our Defence Forces and their families for the contribution they make.

I fully agree with the Minister of State on that. Ireland has a proud role in this regard. That is what we are trying to do with our motion, namely protect that. Since the United Nations was founded, Ireland has been committed to the principle that if we send our military abroad it is under a UN mandate. The Government is ripping that up by abolishing the triple lock and taking us in a dangerous direction.

The implications of this could be very far-reaching. We need a discussion on that. When the Taoiseach, the leader of the Minister of State's party, was in opposition, he said that attempts to dismantle the triple lock were, "[A]n out-of-touch ideological obsession on the part of Fine Gael which ignores the facts of Ireland’s international standing".

EU battle groups, which are now the focus of Ireland's overseas deployment, operate without a UN mandate and are not subject to EU parliamentary or judicial oversight. They are unaccountable to the European Court of Justice, ECJ, the European Court of Human Rights, ECHR, or the European Parliament. The Minister of State's party leader, the Taoiseach, Deputy Martin, told the Dáil when in opposition that:

Earlier this year, the Minister for Defence signalled that he would try to water down Ireland's commitment to the triple lock, which is at the core of our neutrality. He presented the idea that it was contradictory and that we were giving unsavoury countries a veto over our actions. This argument has been behind the efforts of a wing of Fine Gael to erode neutrality over the years.

That is what the Taoiseach told the Dáil when in opposition.

See this speech in context