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

One of the most cynical arguments we have heard in relation to the speaking time row in the past 24 hours has been the suggestion that the Opposition is wasting time on this unimportant thing when there are very important issues happening like the housing crisis, Trump and so forth. Commentators, who have cheered on every step of the way while the Government, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, made developers and landlords rich and worsened the housing crisis, now profess to care about the housing crisis and that we should be debating it. The speaking time row is precisely about our ability as an Opposition to hold the Government to account. It is precisely about us having time to ask questions about issues such as the housing crisis, appropriate education places for children with additional needs and neutrality because we have a Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Lowry Government that is determined to ram through a whole series of unpopular measures. That is fundamentally why they are undermining the ability of the Opposition to hold the Government to account. They want to get rid of neutrality. The Minister of State’s own party leader said the triple lock is at the very core of our neutrality. The Government knows that this is going to be deeply unpopular and, therefore, is halving the time of Taoiseach’s Questions, cutting Private Members’ time and time for the Order of Business in order to stop the voice of Opposition being heard in here so that it can be rammed through. The Taoiseach repeatedly said yesterday that not a single minute of speaking time is being taken off the Opposition. Today, our group gets 13 minutes and 20 seconds in this debate. Next week, however, if the Government gets away with it, we will get ten minutes. The same goes for all the Opposition parties. Our time is being cut to facilitate the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Lowry group.

The fundamental point is that the triple lock is the expression of what is outlined in the Constitution, namely, that “Ireland accepts the generally recognised principles of international law as its rule of conduct in its relations with other States.” That means, under Irish and international law, the only two situations in which it is legal to use military force is in self-defence or under a UN mandate. It is a joke that the Government wants to get rid of the triple lock but still tells us not to worry and that we will still operate within the UN Charter. The UN Charter is what is outlined precisely in the triple lock. For at least 65 years, since the Defence (Amendment) Act 1960, an international force or body established by the Security Council or the General Assembly is what an international United Nations force needs. That is a core meaning of Irish neutrality rooted in the colonial past and present of this island.

Let us remember that the triple lock was endorsed by the people in a referendum. When we voted no to the Nice treaty in 2001 because of worries about the drive of militarisation, the reaction of the Government at the time, made up of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats, including the current Taoiseach, was to add an official declaration to the treaty to include the triple lock. That was the solemn promise given to the people of this country made by our current Taoiseach. It promised us that Irish troops would not be sent overseas without the authorisation of the Security Council or the General Assembly. That is the reason the Nice treaty passed the second time around but the Government is proposing to get rid of it without going back to the people and allowing the people to decide.

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