Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend Senator Clonan on his contribution. I ask the Deputy Leader to invite the Tánaiste primarily to the report from the forum on neutrality. I know that a further report will be published by the forum.

Yesterday, in the Dáil, the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence reiterated his concern about the triple lock, which ensures that any deployment of more than 12 Defence Forces personnel would require a UN mandate, approval by Government and a resolution of the Dáil. He also said "we cannot ignore the deep and systemic challenges facing the UN Security Council," which leads me to wonder why the Security Council is only now an excuse to question the triple lock. The triple lock policy was developed when the Security Council was just as deadlocked, if not more, than it is now. What about the Cold War? What about the fact that only 13 peacekeeping missions were set up by the UN between 1948 and 1978, and none at all between 1979 and 1987? I know that the Tánaiste is not writing off UN peacekeeping and I know that the challenges are real in terms of escalating tensions among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. As Associate Professor, Katharina P. Coleman, and Professor Paul D. Williams point out in an article on peacekeeping that I read yesterday:

Peace operations are a highly resilient international institution for managing armed conflict. Their resilience derives from ... collective intentionality ... Peacekeeping will only become extinct if international actors decide that peacekeeping should no longer exist.

Uncertainly does surround the future of UN peacekeeping but it is precisely for that reason we need the triple lock. We give a huge legitimacy to UN peacekeeping missions and it gives our neutrality legitimacy as well as Ireland's independent foreign policy. Therefore, we must continue to advocate for a reform of the UN, including, as the Tánaiste said yesterday, the abolition of a veto of the five permanent members. If we remove the UN from the triple lock we will end up participating in EU-led or NATO-led missions and as such any mission would lack international legitimacy.

Again I quote from the article by Katharina P. Coleman, and Professor Paul D. Williams:

Peace operations have endured through considerable variation in terms of interest shown by states and they have resounded after periods of relative disinterest. The current period of challenge is not unprecedented. Indeed, the history of UN peace operations can be depicted as a series of retreats, reflections and renaissances. The current contraction is no more likely to be permanent than the previous one.