Rundale

Niamh Ní Bhriain

On 3 July 2025, The Journal reported that there were ‘tetchy scenes’ between neutrality activists and members of the Oireachtas Committee on Defence and National Security during the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025. Indeed there were. We warned legislators that if they enact the bill, they will be putting people in harm’s way, and they didn’t like it.

Since the foundation of the state, Irish troops have been deployed on UN mandated missions only, but the proposed bill seeks to revoke the requirement for a UN mandate paving the way for Irish involvement in EU and NATO led missions.

At a time of heightened global instability and as the EU prepares for war, TDs and senators are legislating, not to enhance the safeguards that keep Ireland out war, but to remove them altogether. Instead of strengthening our neutrality, the government seeks to erode it based on deeply flawed arguments and in a manner that is highly undemocratic and potentially unconstitutional.

Irish neutrality during World War II and the Cold War

During World War II the Irish Free State remained neutral, a position that infuriated British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Theodore Roosevelt. Taoiseach Éamon de Valera came under extreme pressure to abandon neutrality with Churchill dangling the prospect of a united Ireland in exchange for the Free State joining the Allies. When the war ended de Valera responded to criticism from Churchill saying:

Could he not find in his heart the generosity to acknowledge that there is a small nation that stood alone, not for one year or two, but for several hundred years against aggression, that endured spoilations, famines, massacres in endless succession, that was clubbed many times into insensibility, but that each time, on returning consciousness, took up the fight anew, a small nation that could never be got to accept defeat and has never surrendered her soul?’^[1]

The United Nations was born out of the ashes of World War II. Ireland joined in 1955 and began deploying troops on UN peace-keeping missions in 1958. Considering our colonial past, and present in respect of the ongoing British occupation of the six counties, Ireland has a very different history to its European neighbours. It has never been involved in imperialist foreign wars, nor has it invaded or occupied another state. As Irish leaders found their feet in post-World War II multilateral structures, they represented a state that had more of an affinity with newly emerging African nations that were liberating themselves from the shackles of colonialism, than with their European counterparts. In an address to the UN General Assembly in 1962 Minister Frank Aiken declared ‘… my delegation wishes to reaffirm its unalterable opposition to colonial domination in all forms and manifestations’. ^[2]

Minister Aiken, who represented Ireland at the UN from 1957 until 1969, used Irish neutrality to advance peace initiatives at the height of the Cold War that directly challenged the interests of global nuclear superpowers and rivals, the US and the USSR. He spearheaded the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons still in place today, while also calling for demilitarisation zones in eastern Europe ‘underpinned by the neutrality of the surrounding states‘.^[3] Aiken also supported bringing China in from the cold at the UN and backed a proposal by India in 1957 for ‘a full and open discussion’ on the matter at the General Assembly, something that the US strongly opposed.

It was against this backdrop of peacebuilding, multilateralism and decolonisation that the Defence (Amendment) Act 1960 was passed. It set out that Ireland would only deploy troops on overseas missions that had a UN mandate anchoring this aspect of Ireland’s adherence to the UN Charter in domestic law.

Recalling de Valera’s words, it now appears that his successors in Fianna Fáil under Micheál Martin’s leadership, seek to do exactly what the party’s founding member said they would not – ‘accept defeat’ and ‘surrender (Ireland’s) soul’ to imperialist interests embodied today in the US – EU – NATO alliance.

Ireland, the EU and NATO

Like the UN, the EU is also a post-World War II institution with Ireland joining in 1973. Since then, the EU has evolved from a political and economic union to a fully-fledged military union, comprising of military structures and a border force, operating in lockstep with NATO. In the words of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the EU and NATO are ‘one union, one alliance, united in purpose’ and the EU’s White Paper on Defence Readiness 2030 describes EU-NATO cooperation as ‘an indispensable pillar for the development of the EU’s security and defence dimension’. In essence both entities are two sides of the same coin.

So where does Irish neutrality fit within a ‘NATO-ised’ EU? It doesn’t, apparently. And in January 2025 it was reported that the EU was growing impatient with Ireland’s neutrality, though the EU has no competence over Ireland’s security and defence policy. This is a matter for the Irish people, who rejected the notion of joining EU military structures when the matter arose in the context of the Nice and Lisbon treaties.

In June 2001, the Nice Treaty was rejected because of concerns that it would drag Ireland into an EU army. A year later the European Council met in Seville and a Fianna Fáil government led by Bertie Ahern made a National Declaration reframing the Defence Amendment Act 1960 as a ‘Triple Lock’. The Triple Lock set out that, in order to deploy Irish troops overseas, the mission would need approval from both the cabinet and Dáil Éireann, as well as a UN mandate. The government made a solemn declaration that ‘in the event of Ireland’s ratification of the Treaty of Nice, this Declaration will be associated with Ireland’s instrument of ratification’ and in October 2002, the electorate voted in favour of Nice II. In 2008, the Irish electorate rejected the Lisbon Treaty for the same reason and another Fianna Fáil government under Brian Cowen’s leadership reiterated the same commitment. Referendum Commission booklets distributed to each household set out that the aforementioned declaration ‘will be associated with the instrument of ratification if Ireland does ratify the Lisbon Treaty’. On that basis the electorate approved Lisbon II, therefore a revocation of the Triple Lock will likely face a constitutional challenge if the proposed bill is passed without going back to the people.

That the government seeks to repeal legislation put in place on foot of legal and political commitments to the people made in the context of two referenda sets a dangerous precedent for our democracy. This is particularly so because the proposed bill seeks to permit precisely what the electorate would not tolerate – Irish participation in military structures that would jeopardise our neutrality and dilute our commitment to international law.

Ireland, imperialism and comprador politics

To date, the government has embraced the EU and NATO to the extent that it can under the state’s current legal framework with the Triple Lock acting as a safeguard to keep Ireland out of illegal wars.

Under the Defence Amendment Act 2006 troops may be sent overseas without engaging the Triple Lock in certain circumstances including for the purposes of ‘conducting or participating in training’. Because of this carve out, Irish troops regularly participate in EU and NATO-led training exercises, the most recent of which was a German-led EU Battlegroup exercise in Hungary in March and April, which involved 139 Irish troops.

Irish troops also participated in the EU’s Training Mission in Mali, which trained 20,000 Malian troops over an 11 year period in what the EU described as ‘a job well done’. During the EU’s stint in Mali however, the armed forces carried out two military coups and perpetrated serious human rights violations against civilians. Considering the numbers, it is highly likely that Irish defence personnel, under an EU mandate, trained Malian troops that went on to commit horrific atrocities.  

In respect of NATO, Ireland has embraced the alliance through its so-called ‘Partnership for Peace’ since 1999 and in 2024 joined a NATO Individually Tailored Partnership Programme (ITPP), which allows for ‘greater information and intelligence sharing … in areas such as peacekeeping, maritime security and tackling cyber and hybrid threats’. There are other forms of collaboration too between Ireland, NATO, the US and EU that make a mockery of Irish neutrality. The almost daily use of Shannon Airport by the US military, as it, together with Israel and the EU – NATO alliance, perpetrate a genocidal war on Palestine, is perhaps the most egregious example of Ireland’s contravention of international law, notably the Genocide Convention 1951 and the Hague V Convention on Neutrality 1907. 

So why is the government abandoning neutrality against the wishes of the people? It is impossible to comprehensively answer this question in this short article, but the following points are worth considering: 

• Neutrality doesn’t make anyone any money.
• Neutrality makes war mongers and war profiteers very uncomfortable. It shows that there is an alternative to war.

In recent decades the arms lobby has gained access to the decision-making table in Brussels and consequentially vast sums of public money now flow to highly lucrative arms companies. The clearest example of this is the EU’s 2015 Group of Personalities on defence research, which laid the groundwork for the creation of the EU’s Defence Fund and its pilot projects (PADR and EDIDP). Of the Group’s 16 members, nine were from the arms industry, with the companies they represented later receiving public monies under funding lines they were influential in creating. So while the EU’s recently announced €800 billion Defence Readiness fund may be unprecedented because of the amount and scale, in many ways it is more of the same and reflects the direction of travel in Brussels for over a decade now. 

Against this backdrop of an increasingly militarised, NATO-ised and undemocratic EU, controlled by war mongers and profiteers, Irish neutrality can no longer be tolerated, and Ireland must be brought into line.

Enter arms lobby group, the Irish Defence and Security Association, which counts among its members arms giants including Lockheed Martin, Hensoldt and Indra. The Ditch reported in April 2025 that internal IDSA documents revealed ‘plans to target politicians, influence policymakers and place articles in the media – despite acknowledging the Irish public is not interested in greater spending on arms’. Another Ditch report in January 2025 detailed how ‘Lobbyists for international arms manufacturers organised a secret meeting with Department of Defence officials at a Dún Laoghaire hotel – and instructed attendees to maintain secrecy about it’. Indeed IDSA Director Ben Tonra appeared before the Committee on Defence and National Security hailing the proposal to abolish the Triple Lock ‘a significant evolution in Irish policy ’. When TD Catherine Connolly raised a potential conflict of interest, she was quickly shot down by Senator Diarmuid Wilson.

Intertwined with the corporate lobby, there is direct US government pressure and overt interference in internal affairs, in full view of the Irish people, to coerce the government to act in the interests of US empire. The most recent statements coming from Washington regarding the Occupied Territories Bill exemplify this trend. This raises serious questions about the extent to which Ireland is a sovereign state or whether in fact it may be better described as a vassal state operating under the thumb of US empire and run by comprador politicians who serve US interests rather than those of their constituents. 

In a nutshell, democratic governance structures and participatory politics have been hollowed out. Advanced capitalism has taken hold with a shameless race to the bottom encompassing profiteering by any and all means possible, including from war and genocide. 

So what next?

In May 2025, the European External Action Service announced that its Rapid Deployment Capacity, which encompasses the EU’s battlegroups, was fully operational and ready for deployment. Without the Triple Lock there will be no impediment to Irish troops participating in EU Battlegroups and NATO war-fighting missions. Without the Triple Lock, Ireland will have free rein to embed itself fully in the imperialist architecture that wages war and genocide for imperialist gain running roughshod over international law. And without the Triple Lock Ireland will send its youth to fight in extractive foreign wars, to kill and be killed, to return home traumatised, maimed or in body-bags. By abandoning neutrality and joining forces with the EU – NATO alliance, Ireland will expose itself to attack like never before. This is not scare-mongering. Considering the direction of travel, this is the most likely outcome if the Triple Lock is dismantled and our neutrality dealt a final and fatal blow. It is incumbent on all of us to take action to keep the Triple Lock as a bare minimum while putting pressure on the government to reaffirm and strengthen Irish neutrality and sovereignty in the face of growing instability, war and the normalisation of genocide. 

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^[1]    Moynihan, M., Speeches and Statements by Eamon de Valera 1917 – 1973, Gill and Macmillan 1980, pp. 475 – 76

^[2]    Devine K. (2022) Neutrality: Frank Aiken’s Legacy and its Lessons for the Conflict in Ukraine essay published in A Force for Good? Reflections on Neutrality and the Future of Irish Defence, Action for Ireland (AFRI)

^[3]    Ibid