‘Soldiers home in body bags if Triple Lock removed’

Irish soldiers will come home in body bags if the Triple Lock component of our neutrality is removed, Neutrality Roadshow speakers warned at a meeting in Mullingar last Thursday.

They accused the Government of “gaslighting” the Irish public with lies and misrepresentations and claimed that the vast majority of Irish people want our neutrality to stay.

Fourteen people attended the meeting, which was chaired by local activist Mags Glennon. Over the last few months, the Neutrality Roadshow has travelled around Ireland, meeting hundreds of people, including the families of peacekeepers who fear that dismantling the Triple Lock could see Irish soldiers deployed not to keep the peace but to wage war as part of an imperialist military alliance, the panel claimed.

The speakers were Paddy Bresnihan, associate professor at the Department of Geography at Maynooth University, Niamh Ní Bhriain, researcher with the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, and the author of a number of works on the Triple Lock and Neutrality, and Fionn Wallace, a former researcher in the Dáil and European Parliament.

They argued that revoking the Triple Lock will deal a final blow to Irish neutrality, and is not only reckless, it is anti-democratic in the extreme, considering the overwhelming popular support in Ireland for our military neutrality as a nation.

They said the erosion of neutrality comes at a time when the arms lobby in Ireland increasingly has the ear of the Irish political establishment.

No one makes money from neutrality, but war is big business, and it seems our political leaders would now like a piece of this murderous pie, regardless of the deadly consequences for Ireland and our people, the meeting was told.

The Triple Lock means that no Irish soldiers can be deployed overseas without the approval of the government and Dáil Éireann and a UN mandate.

The speakers said the three-tiered approval mechanism makes good sense, yet the government are planning to dismantle it with no meaningful public debate, they claimed.

Martin Cahill from Knockdrin, Mullingar, took issue with the speakers, saying he would like to see an open debate and to hear the arguments for the other side. He argued that Europe could not stand by while warmongers like Putin invade another country. Fionn Wallace responded by saying that a peace deal had been reached between Ukraine and Russia in 2022, but NATO stopped.

Niamh Ní Bhriain said that the UN was far from perfect, but that she would rather live in a world where there is international law rather than jungle law. Gaza, she said, where people are dying before our eyes, is an example of what you have if you don’t have international law. I would prefer to be in a country that is operating within the UN system than NATO that backs genocide, she said.

Brian Sheridan from Ballynacargy asked why the government were so eager to raise spending on weapons and abolish the Triple Lock.

“There’s no money in neutrality. People in power make a lot of money out of militarisation,” Niamh Ní Bhriain replied.

She said that there are people in Ireland who feel that if we invest in the military industrial complex, we will be able to tap in to generous funding from Brussels. “There are a lot of people in the Dáil who will make a lot of money if Ireland goes down this road,” she claimed. In reply to James Killian from Boher, Niamh said the Irish people were promised that if they supported the Nice and Lisbon treaties, legislation would be introduced to safeguard our neutrality. That safeguard was the Triple Lock.

“This is a crisis for democracy,” she stated. Peacekeepers cannot speak out but they and their families are terrified, she stated.

Mags Glennon, who chaired the meeting, accused TDs of misrepresenting what the Triple Lock means and what removing it would mean. She said it was important to raise public awareness so that pressure can be put on local TDs. “The reality is that the vast majority of activists are opposed to diminishing our neutrality,” she said.

Meeting hears explanation of what the Triple Lock is

The Neutrality Roadshow, which has been touring the country for the last six, months, came to Mullingar last Thursday.

Those in attendance were told that the roadshow was born out of frustration that so many lies were being told about what the Triple Lock is, or people were getting a technical version of what it means in an attempt to make them feel overwhelmed or lose interest.

What is the Triple Lock? Niamh Ní Bhriain, a researcher with the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam and the author of a number of works on the Triple Lock and Neutrality, explained.

She said it is a piece of legislation that regulates the deployment of any more than 12 Irish soldiers overseas.

For more than 12 to be sent, there must be approval at cabinet and Dáil level and there must be a UN mandate. The Triple Lock is a commitment to operate under international law, she said.

Fionn Wallace, a former researcher in the Dáil and European Parliament, said a colonial mindset, almost a white supremacy attitude, still prevails in the EU.

He said military spending in the EU is being raised to new heights. He claimed that one fifth of government spending in Ireland is going to go on arms and weapons.

“We are being told that this is a brave new world and we need to be able to defend ourselves,” Fionn said. If the Triple Lock goes, Irish soldiers will be sent in to murder people for Europe’s advantage, he warned.

Paddy Bresnihan, associate professor in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University, accused the government of “gaslighting” the people by distorting the truth by claiming that dismantling the Triple Lock will not affect our neutrality but will safeguard our sovereignty.

The biggest obstacle to dismantling the Triple Lock is the Irish people, he claimed. He declared that four out of five Irish citizens were committed to neutrality. The Irish people don’t want massive spending on fighter jets, they want money spent on housing, healthcare, childcare, he said.

The Irish people are traditionally anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism and broadly republican, Paddy suggested. He spoke of Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen who maintained that the English Spanish war “was no business of ours”. He spoke of WWI when Irish leaders such as James Connolly led the neutrality league that held “this war is not for us”. He spoke of 1918, when attempts to conscript Irish troops were thwarted, and WWII when Ireland resisted huge pressure to join The Allies.

He referred to Frank Aiken, who, as a member of the UN in 1957, backed a proposal to let China join. When he was slated at home for “burning bridges with the US by taking this idiotic position”, he argued that Ireland was neutral, that all countries should be in the UN, and that decisions should not be taken for short term economic interests, he said.

The government are throwing themselves behind this drive towards militarisation and a climate of war rather than maintaining our traditional line of neutrality, Professor Bresnihan said.

He said the Triple Lock will probably be dismantled, but warned that Irish soldiers will die and will come home in body bags.