Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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1. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence his proposals to remove the triple lock neutrality protection; his plans to bring forward a Bill; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [60896/25]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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4. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence if the triple lock will be retained in view of the support for it demonstrated by the outcome of the presidential election; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [60858/25]

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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We have had a fair bit of airtime and a fair bit of discussion in this place in relation to the Government's plans to scrap the triple lock, and they are to end the triple lock, not to amend or adjust it.

I recall that in the committee we were told there was a great rush to try to move along with pre-legislative scrutiny in order to ensure that legislation would be ready. That was far from ideal; however, we on the committee did our best. We are still none the wiser as to what legislation has come out the other end. Perhaps the Tánaiste could give us an update.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 and 4 together.

The committee did a very good job. The timeline for pre-legislative scrutiny is set down by the Standing Orders of this House, to the best of my knowledge. The committee kept to those timelines and produced a comprehensive report, and I thank Deputy Ó Laoghaire and all members of the committee for their work on that.

As the Deputy rightly recalls, the general scheme of the defence (amendment) Bill 2025 was published on 21 May. It consolidates, with amendments, the existing provisions of the Defence Acts 1954 to 2015 concerning the dispatch of members of the Defence Forces for service outside the State. The general scheme also proposes amendments to existing legislation to provide for the suspension of members of the Defence Forces to give effect to recommendations in the 2024 Ward report.

The pre-legislative scrutiny process of the general scheme was completed, as Deputy Ó Laoghaire rightly says, at the end of July. This process provided the Oireachtas committee with the opportunity to examine the heads of the Bill and to hear from and bring in many relevant stakeholders on the proposed legislation. I am, as I have said, grateful to all members of the committee. There are very good proposals within these recommendations. I say that sincerely. I am working through them with my officials - indeed, I went through quite a number of them this week - as the full Bill is being drafted.

Under the current proposals in the general scheme to amend the legislation, the requirement for a UN Security Council mandate will be removed. I again underline that the legislation in place allows members of the UN Security Council, by means of a veto or indeed threat of same, to bind this country's hands in its international peacekeeping engagement. Recent vetoes by a UN Security Council member on a proposed resolution for a full and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza last June, as well as the challenges evidenced over the summer with regard to the extension of the UNIFIL mandate to allow peacekeepers to southern Lebanon, are ample evidence of this. With regard to the latter particularly, in the event that the UNIFIL mandate were not extended, Ireland would have been in the position of having to plan to withdraw its Defence Forces personnel from UNIFIL immediately following the expiration of the mandate.

I believe it is untenable, therefore, for the Government to continue with this policy. I again state my strong belief that such considerations on international peacekeeping engagement should be within Ireland's exclusive sovereign control and that decision-making on this should be purely within the remit of our Government and our Oireachtas, which have been democratically elected by the people of this country.

I recognise, however, that in removing the UN Security Council mandate requirement there will be a need to strengthen the democratic oversight governing the ongoing deployment of Defence Forces personnel overseas. Therefore, in parallel to removing the UN mandate requirement, text will be included in this Bill which will require that the mandate of future operations be consistent with, and adhere to, the principles of the UN Charter and international law. These principles are being refined to ensure appropriate legal effect as part of the drafting process.

I am interested in working with the Deputies on this. We will never reach agreement on the broad policy around this - I take that point - but I am determined to bring forward legislation in this area, as is the Government, and we will do that. I am, however, very willing to work with, and in fact very enthusiastic about working with, this House to try to develop an oversight mechanism to provide independent external assurance on adherence to these principles. I do not wish to speak for the committee, but from my rereading of the pre-legislative scrutiny report from the committee this week, I think the committee was teasing its way through that as well. I concede on the floor - not even concede but agree - that there is a need to beef up the legislation on that.

I intend to bring this Bill to the Government shortly - the Deputies will ask me what "shortly" means, which is a fair question; I expect it to be within this year - and for the debate in the Oireachtas to begin thereafter. This will provide - and we should provide - ample time to work through the legislation, and I commit to providing that time from the Government's perspective.

I want to make it absolutely clear that the Government has no desire to alter our policy of military neutrality. The amendments proposed will do nothing to change Ireland's traditional position of military neutrality, which has always been characterised by Ireland's non-participation in military alliances. Our engagement overseas will continue to be firmly grounded in the principles of the UN Charter and international law and will, of course, require the consent of the democratically elected representatives of the people of Ireland.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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This is an issue that has seen a fair bit of discussion recently. In the context of a presidential election and a presidential candidate, or our President, it is not an area in which they have executive power, but the nature of all presidential elections is that there is discussion about Ireland's place in the world, how we see ourselves and how we can best exercise influence internationally. The candidate who, in my view, articulated very clearly a vision for an Ireland that holds its own course and that is neutral, as a clear-eyed assessment of our place in the world and of how best we can use our influence, won a resounding mandate. Most opinion polls indicate very strong support not only for Ireland's policy of military neutrality but also for retaining the triple lock. The Tánaiste has talked a great deal about sovereignty. The greatest test of sovereignty in this jurisdiction is the Irish people. Would the Tánaiste consider putting a significant proposal that has constitutional ramifications to the Irish people?

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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The Government wants to get rid of the triple lock in order that it can send Irish troops abroad on EU or NATO-led missions. The Government will not tell us where it wants to send these troops. I oppose that. I defend our neutrality. I believe the majority of people do. However, I want to focus, at least initially, less on the substance of that but on the democratic question. The Government has refused, despite calls from many in the Opposition, to hold a plebiscite to allow the people to decide, so the closest thing we have to a view of the people is the presidential election. Neutrality was arguably the number one issue in the election, and there was a clear difference between the Government's candidate and the candidate I supported. Both said they supported neutrality, but the difference was that Heather Humphreys said it in the way the Tánaiste says it, which is to empty the word of any meaning. One candidate, Catherine Connolly, defended the triple lock; the other candidate opposed it. The candidate who defended the triple lock got 63% of the vote. That is an expression of people's will. The Government really has no mandate to proceed with this, particularly in the context of the promise to keep the triple lock being crucial in persuading people to change their minds in terms of the second Nice treaty referendum. People have voted for this effectively twice and the Government wants to get rid of it without allowing them a third vote.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Deputies cannot pick and choose which mandates they like. I have a mandate - a very clear and a very large mandate - from the people of Wicklow and I have a mandate from-----

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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Not to get rid of the triple lock.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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No, but I have a mandate to bring forward legislative proposals. I have a mandate to table draft laws, as do the Deputies opposite. I have a mandate to debate and discuss those laws, and my mandate is perfectly valid, as is the mandate of every Member of this House. The Deputies cannot pick and choose which mandates they like. We tend not to talk about the President in this House. I will not do so or talk about the President-elect other than to wish her every health, happiness and success as she prepares to take office. The Deputies should not over-interpret results from any election. Question No. 4 is a fascinating parliamentary question in that Deputy Murphy is deciding to attach motives to the Irish people. We have not seen this since de Valera had to look into his heart to decide where the Irish people stood. Deputy Murphy is deciding what motivated people to go out and vote in the presidential election, a very brave thing to do. I am not sure it tallies with any evidence we have seen from exit polling information that was published by Ireland Thinks. If we want to talk about mandates, one of the figures we should talk about is the fact that 70% of the people of Ireland who had a right to vote either did not vote in the election or chose to spoil their vote. Let us talk about that as well. I would not get carried away in making decisions on the result of a presidential election, which was resoundingly won by President-elect Connolly, and I wish her every success. We are beginning to see that Deputy Murphy will attach to the President-elect every view of every policy he wishes. The President-elect was very clear in the election campaign: I heard her say many times that she would have no role at all in the substance of the legislation. She will have a very clear constitutional role, which she will discharge with distinction, as every President of Ireland ever has done. That is my first point.

My second is that if we are on the issue of opinion polling - Deputy Ó Laoghaire made the point that the majority of people of Ireland do not favour the change to the triple lock - I do not have the data in front of me but I do remember seeing a poll in The Irish Times that was published only a number of weeks ago that showed opposition to changing the triple lock down and support for changing it up. I think, therefore, that the Irish people are well able to differentiate between military neutrality and amending our laws as to how we dispatch and deploy our troops overseas.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Opposition to this might have been up or might have been down, but if you lose a game 5-2 it is not last goal wins. At the end of the day, the bigger number is the bigger number.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I am not sure it was a majority, though.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Tánaiste has made a couple of points. He is right: we cannot say the presidential election is the final word on this.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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That is good.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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However, only one political party - it was not his party - came to the last general election with anything even resembling a manifesto commitment that gave it any kind of mandate.

Deputy Murphy is right when he suggests there is a better way of defining public opinion. If the Government is willing - we are certainly willing - to put this to the people and have a clear question asked of them in order to get a clear answer in relation to this, I am quite confident as to what the outcome will be. The presidential election might be the best barometer we have, albeit imperfect and thrown in with a lot of other things. However, the Government has the ability for a more precise measurement of public opinion. Why not proceed with that?

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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The Tánaiste speaks about his electoral mandate, and there is no question about that. The basis of his party's mandate is its election manifesto, which referred to "preserving our long-standing policy of active military neutrality" and maintaining military neutrality. There was no mention of redefining that or getting rid of the triple lock. Therefore, the Tánaiste does not have a mandate for what he is trying to do. There was the vaguest hint and glance to making such a change in the Fianna Fáil manifesto, but it did not refer to repealing the triple lock. The Tánaiste's party made no such commitment. This is precisely the point. We are not claiming that the presidential election was a referendum on neutrality, pure and simple, but we want a referendum on neutrality. We want a referendum on the triple lock. We want the people to be able to decide. Why is the Tánaiste so scared of allowing the people to have their view and their say on this?

I would like to ask the Tánaiste about one point of substance. He repeatedly speaks about "the principles of the UN Charter", which are also mentioned in the heads of the proposed legislation. That is deliberate, is it not? The Tánaiste will not speak about a commitment to abide by the UN Charter or the articles of the UN Charter. Instead, he refers purely to the vague and broad "principles" of Article 2, which do not bind the Government to stick to international law.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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That is a space in which I am willing to and wanting to engage. I fully accept quite clearly that we do not agree on the issue of changing the role of the triple lock. I think the Deputy's position is to leave things as they are. I do not say that flippantly. I think that is the Deputy's position. My position is that we are going to change it. I am very happy to have a conversation about the substance of the legislation in terms of how we build in a degree of external oversight of the commitments that the legislation gives in relation to the UN Charter. I am very happy to do that. I am also happy to tease through the detail that the Deputy relayed in terms of the specificity of the UN Charter and how the legislation can look at that. I do not believe we can run back to the Irish people with a referendum on every piece of legislation. This is not an attempt to change Ireland's position on military neutrality; it is an attempt to change how we dispatch peacekeeping troops overseas. We would be shirking our own responsibilities as legislators who are sent here to get on with the business of debating, and who are trusted by our constituents to do that in a considerable-----

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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The context is the commitments in past referendums.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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To military neutrality, which has not changed.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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No, to the triple lock.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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The triple lock.

David Maxwell (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I ask the Deputies to allow the Tánaiste to answer.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I would like make a point about last year's general election. This gets mentioned a lot. In fairness to my predecessor, who is now Taoiseach, the process and the policy process of changing the triple lock was advanced in the previous Government. The Deputies will remember the comments of Micheál Martin in the previous Government. When we then went before the people - Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael - we were clearly not indicating that we were going to change that position. We had only articulated it a couple of months earlier. This Government and the previous Government have been quite clear on this. I think a majority of Irish people will come with us in relation to this issue. I think they differentiate between that issue and the question of military neutrality, as they should because I am massively in favour of military neutrality as well. I welcome the recognition from the Opposition today that we are not going to extrapolate every policy issue for the next four years on the basis of an overinterpretation of the results of the presidential election.