Locking Arms - Village Magazine

76 July-August 2024

Locking Arms

Triple Lock: What is it and why we should keep it

By Peadar King

INTERNATIONAL

July-August 2024 77

Triple Lock: What is it and why we should keep it

Undermining the Triple Lock

Efforts to undermine those solemn

declarations, most notably led by Fine Gael

(also supported by Fianna Fáil) have been

roundly rejected in opinion poll after opinion

poll and by many other political parties. In

this respect, a 2022 decision at Fine Gael’s

Ard Fheis that voted in favour of a motion

that calls on the Government to remove the

Triple Lock is an indication of how out-of-

step that party is with the mood and

expressed views of the Irish people.

The Consultative Forum on Interna-

tional Security Policy

In the Spring of 2023. the government

established a Consultative Forum on

International Security Policy chaired by

Louise Richardson DBE (Dame Commander

of the Order of the British Empire).

The Forum was invited to consider

Ireland’s multilateral engagement on

security and defence issues, including

through our partnerships with the European

Union (EU), the United Nations (UN), and the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

It looked at:

•

• Ireland’s role in protecting the rules-

based international order; including its

experience in peacekeeping,

•

• Ireland’s approach to the European

Union’s Common Security and Defence

Policy (EU CSDP), and its engagement on

international law and accountability; and

•

• Ireland’s policy position of military

neutrality and an the deﬁnitions, options,

and implications of the policy of neutrality.

Richardson’s report was published on 10

October 2023. While it is beyond the scope

of this article to critique in detail the

conclusions of her report, one example

highlights the ambiguities within the report.

In her conclusions Richardson writes:

“Maintaining a policy of military

nonalignment along with active political

The Triple Lock

The Triple Lock requires that in general the

deployment of Irish Defence Forces troops

abroad be approved by the Dáil, the

government, and the UN Security Council or

General Assembly.

Irish People’s Commitment to Irish

Neutrality

An IPSOS/MRBI poll of 15th April, 2022,

showed two-thirds (66%) of voters did not

want to see any change in neutrality

“generally understood as…[requiring] a

United Nations Security Council (UNSC)

resolution for Irish troops to be committed

abroad”.

The Nice Treaty

On 12 June 2001, by a margin of 53.87% to

46.13%, the Irish electorate rejected the

Nice Treaty referendum (among its

provisions was the implementation of a

common foreign and security policy

including the progressive framing of a

common defence policy, which might lead to

a common defence) sending shock waves

not just through the Irish political system

but the European one too.

Panic-stricken, the Irish government

clutched onto any strategy they thought

would influence the Irish electorate to

change its mind. Central to that strategy was

the Triple Lock.

The Seville Declaration

That strategy was outlined in the Irish

‘Seville Declaration on the Treaty of Nice’,

wherein the Government made “a firm

commitment to the people of Ireland,

solemnised in this Declaration, that a

referendum will be held in Ireland on the

adoption of any such decision and on any

future Treaty which would involve Ireland

departing from its traditional policy of

military neutrality”.

The Seville Declaration further reiterated

“that the participation of contingents of the

Irish Defence Forces in overseas operations,

including those carried out under the

European security and defence policy”,

requires the Triple Lock as described above.

This was a solemn declaration.

Recognising the deeply felt concerns of the

Irish electorate and its much cherished

attachment to Irish neutrality, the then

government which included current

Tánaiste, Micheál Martin, entered into this

binding contract with the Irish people.

The Referendum Commissions and

the Triple Lock

In the lead-in to this referendum The

In the second Lisbon vote

a majority (67.1%) of the

Irish people were swayed

by the commitment to the

Triple Lock

Referendum Commission under the

chairmanship of Judge Frank Clarke, who

later became Chief Justice, outlined the

basic facts (p19) of the referendum including

the following:

“At the meeting of the European

Council at which this decision was

made, Ireland made a declaration in

relation to military neutrality. This sets

out Ireland’s policies and practices. It

reiterates [the Triple Lock as outlined

above].

This declaration will be associated

with the instrument of ratiﬁcation if

Ireland does ratify the Lisbon Treaty”.

So the status of the Triple Lock was clear.

A majority of the Irish people were swayed

by these assurances. In a revision of the ﬁrst

referendum, on 7 November 2002 a

signiﬁcant majority (62.89%) approved the

Nice Treaty.

The Lisbon Treaty and the Triple

Lock

Further alarm ensued in June 2008 when

the Irish electorate rejected (53.4% to

46.6%) the Lisbon Treaty among the

provisions of which was the establishment

of a European Defence Agency to strengthen

the industrial and technological base of the

defence sector.

The response of the Irish Government to

these concerns in advance of the subsequent

Lisbon II referendum was outlined through

the Irish Guarantee on the Lisbon Treaty,

wherein through national declaration,

Ireland reiterated “that the participation of

contingents of the Irish Defence Forces in

overseas operations, including those

carried out under the European Common

Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) requires

(a) the authorisation of the operation by

the Security Council or the General Assembly

of the United Nations

(b) the agreement of the Irish Government

accordance with Irish law”.

The national declaration contained within

the Irish Guarantee on the Lisbon Treaty

further declared that Ireland would

participate only in European Defence Agency

projects or programmes “that contribute to

enhancing the capabilities required for

participation in UN-mandated missions for

peace-keeping, conflict prevention and

strengthening international security, in

accordance with the principles of the United

Nations Charter”.

A majority (67.1%) of the Irish people weas

swayed by the commitment to the Triple

Lock.

78 July-August 2024

engagement in global forums will continue

to pose a challenge for Irish governments

and diplomats, as will the need to balance a

values-based foreign policy with taking

seriously the security concerns and

responsibilities of our partners”.

What those challenges are, is not clariﬁed.

No clarity is oered on what is meant by

“a values-based foreign policy”.

And who our partners are is not stated.

Political flip flopping on

Irish Neutrality

On 5 April 2013, in a statement to the Dáil,

Micheál Martin TD, Minister for Foreign

Aairs, stated “It appears that Fine Gael is

arguing that Ireland is failing in its European

responsibilities and is allowing Russia and

China to have a veto over our peacekeeping

activities. This is nothing more than an out-

of-touch ideological obsession on the part

of Fine Gael which ignores the facts of

Ireland’s international standing”.

As recently as the 2020 general election,

the Fianna Fáil manifesto committed the

party to “fully maintain neutrality and the

Triple Lock” that “Fianna Fáil rearms its

commitment to the retention of the Triple

Lock of UN mandate or authorisation,

Government and Dáil approval, prior to

committing Defence Forces personnel on

overseas service. Ireland has correctly

conferred primacy to the UN since joining in

1955, working with other UN members in

supporting international action in areas

such as disarmament, peacekeeping across

its full spectrum, humanitarian/

development actions and human rights

implementation. We will fully maintain

neutrality and the Triple Lock mechanism”.

The current Programme for Government:

Our Shared Future commits this Government

to “ensure that all overseas operations will

be conducted in line with our position of

military neutrality and will be subject to a

Triple Lock of UN, Government and Dáil

Éireann approval”.

The principles laid down by the Triple Lock

were undermined by Ireland having become

a member of the NATO Partnership for Peace

(PfP) programme and signing up to NATO’s

Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC).

But they were seriallly undermined by

decisions that post-dated it:

• In 2016, Ireland joined NATO’s

Operational Capability Concept (OCC) whose

goal is to assist non-members in reaching

NATO standards, and to foster

interoperability.

• In 2022, Ireland became a member of EU

PESCO (Permanent Structured Cooperation).

• In 2023, 130 troops from the Irish

Defence Forces Corps of Engineers

underwent a NATO assessment of their

capabilities in Cork on the week of 17 July.

• In 2023, Tánaiste and Minister for

Foreign Aairs Micheál Martin’s November

2023 stated that the Government would

scrap the UN veto on Irish troop deployment,

eroding our increasingly fragile and

threatened democracy and bolstering the

military industrial-complex and far-right

extremism.

Many media outlets, most notably the

Irish Times are promoting the change. In

November 2023 it editorialised: “The Irish

Times view on the Triple Lock: proposed

change does not threaten neutrality”.

Presidential Intervention

In the context of the blood-soaked world of

2024, President Michael D Higgins’

November 2023 salient intervention that

“Ireland is “playing with ﬁre” during a

dangerous period of “drift” in its foreign

policy and must avoid “burying ourselves in

other people’s agendas” encapsulates the

very essence of the concerns of the majority

of Irish people.

President Higgins said that Ireland should

avoid the “strutting and chest thumping” of

those who would espouse a “hold-me-back

version of Irish policy”, and who would want

Ireland to “march at the front of the band”

into military alliances such as NATO. “We’re

better than that”, he said, adding that Irish

foreign policy should be based on the

country’s tradition of international

cooperation.

A broad coalition of Irish anti-war

organisations and activists and some

politicians including AFRI, SToP Ireland

(Swords into Ploughshares) World BEYOND

War, the Irish Neutrality League, Cork

Neutrality Forum, the Peace and Neutrality

Alliance, the Irish Anti-war Movement, the

Connolly Youth Movement, ShannonWatch,

UpLift and Doras have consistently and

unreservedly called for the retention of the

Triple Lock,

The Irish government should respect the

democratic wishes of the Irish people,

respect the commitments it has entered

into, reject the rising international chorus of

militarisation and recommit itself to an

international non-aligned peaceful

engagement with all peoples across the

world.

Peadar King is the former producer and

presenter of the RTÉ global aairs series,

‘What In The World’

The current Programme

for Government commits

to “ensure that all

overseas operations will

be conducted in line with

our position of military

neutrality and will be

subject to a Triple Lock of

UN, Government and Dáil

Éireann approval”

Then nd now