Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I will not be told what I should say. I am free to speak, as is Senator Ryan. He makes political points and I am entitled to make a political point.

To return to the triple lock argument, I heard Javier Solana speak on this matter at the Forum on Europe. I also heard a leading United States expert on foreign policy speaking on it. I cannot remember his name, he may a Congressman. Javier Solana made the point that the example mentioned by Senator Brian Hayes was isolated. It only happened on one occasion. The United States spokesperson pointed out every country must have a framework of rules and conventions for its foreign policy. When it is self-imposed it does not involve any loss of sovereignty whatsoever. It is a sovereign decision and, in principle, it could be changed down the line.

One must understand the reason and rationale for the triple lock system. As Senator Brian Hayes knows, most people in this country are attached to the tradition of military neutrality. Alongside that, and this is part of the de Valera tradition of foreign policy going back to 1946, is a desire to contribute to international collective security. There is no conflict between neutrality in the sense of not belonging to partial military alliances and supporting international collective security. The reality is one would not have sufficient consensus in public opinion in this country unless fairly clear guarantees were given. We have a long tradition of support for the United Nations and, taking that by and large as a rule of thumb, one isolated example is not sufficient to depart from it.

If one was to get rid of the triple lock system, it would not merely apply in cases where China used its veto for an arbitrary reason not connected with the situation in which we were interested in participating. It would leave us wide open to involvement in many situations without a United Nations sanction. That would not be acceptable to public opinion. The certain uneasiness and the fact we have not rushed into it is because of terms such as "battle groups", which the Government and the Minister agree are unfortunate. We have a duty, particularly as a prosperous and well regarded nation to play our full part in international collective security and to do so reasonably pragmatically.

I have no hang-ups about our having engaged in peace-enforcement missions since about 1993. I have no problem with such missions if they have UN backing. Senator Brian Hayes is right in that the UN has moved in recent years towards delegating responsibility in this regard to regional organisations and this means we could find ourselves engaged in peacekeeping missions co-ordinated by NATO. This does not alter the fact that the missions would be UN-backed but, none the less, the logistics would be organised by NATO. As we know, there is opposition to such proposals from groups such as PANA, one of the leading lights of which is a member of the Labour Party although he does not necessarily express Labour Party policy.

Public consensus in this matter is very important. There is great support for our Defence Forces — I would never wish this to be otherwise — and I therefore believe the triple lock mechanism is an essential reassurance. One would need to realise that an isolated problem would have to recur regularly to warrant change and I fully support the Government's position in this regard. The triple lock mechanism needs to be maintained but I also support the view that we need to make the largest possible contribution, within our capacity, to international peacekeeping operations. This requires some pragmatism and that is why I am opposed to these amendments.