Rundale

Can ordinary people stop Irish Government involvement in EU militarisation and war?

Karen Devine

Introducing the Triple Lock

The Triple Lock is a piece of legislation that ensures the participation of contingents of the Irish Defence Forces  in overseas operations – including those carried out under the European security and defence policy of the European Union (EU) – 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, and (c) the approval of Dáil Éireann in accordance with Irish law.  The Government is pushing legislation through the Oireachtas to eradicate the requirement for UN authorisation, provoking normative, democratic, legal, and political consequences of historical proportions. 

Public Support for the Triple Lock as part of Active Positive Neutrality

The Triple Lock is a foundational part of active, positive neutrality. The results of seventeen opinion polls that asked about preferences on neutrality, military alliances and NATO from 1981 to 2023 show that roughly four in five people in Ireland consistently support active positive neutrality over time compared to just 13-15% who are willing to join NATO or reject neutrality. Stability in concepts of neutrality and attitudes to neutrality is expected because of the stability of the values and identity of the mass public from which their attitudes are derived. Research shows identity is one of two structural dimensions driving public support for Irish neutrality, i.e., typically the prouder an individual is to be Irish, the more that individual supports Irish neutrality. Independence is the second dimension, i.e., typically the more an individual wishes Ireland to be independent, particularly standing apart from European security and defence integration, the more that individual supports Irish neutrality. 

Academic research collating answers given by the public to the question, “what does Irish neutrality mean to you?” shows that active, positive neutrality has a very consistent meaning for people in Ireland, primarily, (i) not getting involved in war, (ii) staying independent/independence, and (iii) not taking sides in wars i.e., impartiality. In practice this defines parameters for the deployment of Irish Defences Forces, as articulated by Irish people’s answers (verbatim data shown in brackets), including a) non-aggression (“Not to engage in wars of aggression”), not being in an ‘EU army’ (“we should not have to join a European army”), but also not acquiescing in EU wars, (“ability… not to go to war if the EU does”) and limiting military activity of the state and army to peacekeeping (“Peace-keeping only. No other military commitment”), and only through operations sanctioned by the United Nations (UN) (“Ireland only participating in UN operations”). The Government wants to remove the authorisation by the Security Council or the General Assembly of the United Nations for Irish Defence Forces deployment overseas in order to participate in European Union and or NATO military missions that would not have a UN mandate, thereby destroying the foundations of publicly-supported active, positive neutrality. 

There is no public, democratic mandate to destroy the Triple Lock – even a Government-commissioned report published October 10, 2023, acknowledges this fact. Yet by 18 April 2023, the Taoiseach decided to abandon the original proposal to have a citizens’ assembly on neutrality made up of a representative but random group reflecting a cross-section of Irish society, and instead have a so-called ‘stakeholder forum’, to find justification for moving away from neutrality. And by 8 May 2025, when the Tánaiste, Minister for Defence, and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Harris was asked if he would commit to a public plebiscite on the question of the removal of the triple lock, the reply was: “the Government’s proposed changes to the Triple Lock…. does not require a national plebiscite”.  

The Legal Consequences of breaking the Social Contract and International Agreements 

The Government rather simplistically believes that because it was ‘clever’ enough not to put the Triple Lock in the Protocol attached to the Lisbon Treaty in 2013, and because the Triple Lock is not in the Constitution, that it does not have to hold a referendum and instead can use a parliamentary procedure at its disposal to destroy the Triple Lock and that is the end of the matter.  It is more complex than that, because the Government’s action – including all members of the Oireachtas that vote with the Government on this matter – is arguably unconstitutional at the national, European, and international levels of law. 

Firstly, at the national level, the people of Ireland are Sovereign under article 6 of Bunreacht na hÉireann, designated with the right, in final appeal, to decide all questions of national policy. Therefore, the government cannot abolish the Triple Lock without holding a referendum, given its proposed removal is clearly a question of national policy. Secondly, at the European level, the Triple Lock National Declaration was put in writing by the European Council (as presented by the Council of Ministers’ Presidency Conclusions on 19 June 2009); it therefore exists as a legal agreement at the level of the European Union, and is recognised as such under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Thirdly, at the international level, the Triple Lock National Declaration associated with Ireland’s instrument of ratification of the Nice and Lisbon Treaties has legal status under the international law of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The President of Ireland and his Council of State should consider these legal implications before the Defence (Amendment) Bill can be signed off.

Redeployment from UN Peacekeeping missions into the EU’s BattleGroup & Standing Army 

The Government has already taken steps to reduce Ireland’s contributions to UN peacekeeping missions and redeploy troops to participate in EU Battlegroups. For example, on 23 March 2023 the Government confirmed EU BattleGroup participation was its reason for its decision to withdraw the Irish Defence Forces from UN Deployment in the UNDOF Peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights. Why is the government so determined to abolish the Triple Lock and pave the way for Irish Defence Forces personnel to fight overseas in unauthorised EU / NATO military operations?  

The answer lies in the militarisation that the Irish Government has agreed to at the EU level, and the Government’s attempts to spin the validity of an “EU-based mandate option” which in practice is no different to a ‘NATO-based mandate option’ and completely anathema to the people of Ireland. On 10^th November 2017, the European Commission announced a new Connecting Europe Facility defence fund of 6.5 billion euros to “strengthen military mobility among EU Member States and in cooperation with NATO” – specifically to modernise Europe’s transport systems to move troops east for conflict with Russia. On 13^th June 2018, Federica Mogherini, then Vice-President of the Commission and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the EU (aka the EU Foreign Minister), with the support of the Commission, announced a €13 billion European Defence Fund to co-finance joint development of military capabilities, alongside a new €10.5 billion so-called European Peace Facility to “improve the financing of EU military operations.”

On 6^th May 2021, Ireland’s defence minister discussed a project with the other EU member-states ministers to set up a 5,000-strong military force that could be deployed quickly to a potential conflict zone. On 21^st March 2022, stemming from the Lisbon Treaty provisions and under the cover of what the EU calls “Strategic Compass”, the Irish Government alongside other EU member-state governments “formally approved” a “Rapid Deployment Capacity (RDC)” comprising of a “minimum of 5000 standing troops”, “as a force that is permanently available and trains together with the goal of reaching a standing force.” The Government signed Ireland up to the Strategic Compass, committing Ireland to spend more on defence, to develop military capacity and co-operate with NATO, and to participation in the RDC (Haughey, 18 May 2023) merely stating, “we can opt in or out of missions”. As then Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin declared, “We have participated in every EU battle group since 1999 and will participate in this one as well. That is the policy position of Government”, having already decided to withdraw Irish troops from the UN peacekeeping mission UNDOF to participate in the RDC. However, once the Triple Lock is eradicated, the government can cease all Irish participation in UN Peacekeeping and instead redeploy to this new EU standing army. 

The EU demands that this RDC army is supported by major defence spending to procure the weapons it deems necessary. The aforementioned “Strategic Compass” does this, in a “quantum leap forward…[to] invest more … in our defence capabilities…. complementary to NATO” and will “make full use of the aforementioned European Peace Facility (EPF)” to do so. This “Peace Facility” is an ‘off-books’ fund for financing EU military actions established by Council Decision of 22 March 2021 and was supposed to have a spending ceiling of €5 billion in 2018 prices. However, the EU member-state governments have continually revised this financial ceiling upwards, raising it to €8 billion in December 2022, €12 billion in March 2023, and €17 billion in 2024. The Council raised the EPF’s financial ceiling by €5 billion to fuel the war in Ukraine through “a dedicated Ukraine Assistance Fund (UAF).” This included €11.647 billion approved “to provide arms, lethal arms, lethal assistance… even fighter jets…we are providing the most important arms to go to war,”in order to prolong and intensify the war in Ukraine. Josef Borrell, the EU’s former Minister for Foreign Affairs, excitedly announced, “This is the first time in history that we will be doing that. Everybody agreed – or at least did not obstruct – this decision”, including Ireland. These monies – including monies from Irish taxpayers – are being used to finance war in Ukraine, which is the opposite of what the 35% of citizens across the EU seeking a negotiated ceasefire want (versus just 23% that want to fuel and prolong the war). 

On 28^th March 2025, the European Commission announced its intention for EU member-states to break the laws on EMU – “activating the national escape clause of the Stability and Growth Pact” – in order to create a budget of €800 billion to spend on armaments.  As part of that plan, the EU has announced a budget of €131 billion of public monies for militarisation over the 2028-2034 period (European Commission, 16 July 2025) – but this excludes the ‘off-books’ monies that will be multiple times that €131bn figure. 

It is likely that most people are unaware of these recent developments, given the tiny numbers of people across the EU who are aware their state signed up to an EU mutual defence clause in 2009 through ratification of the Lisbon Treaty – a 2016 Eurobarometer poll shows only 12% of European citizens claim to be aware of the mutual defence clause and to know what it is, driven by more males (17%) than females (9%).  All of these developments are compatible with the meaning of the Government concept of so-called ‘Military Neutrality’, i.e., de facto but unofficial membership of NATO and pursuit of the goal of full integration in EU militarisation, including participation in wars.

Conclusion

The two sides in the struggle to keep or destroy active, positive Irish neutrality and the Triple Lock are clear: on one side are the ‘militarists’: the European Union (EU), NATO, and the military industrial complex, alongside agents called Jean Monnet professors (EU spokespersons embedded in universities, who are paid directly by the European Union to be its ‘intellectual ambassadors’), think tanks, and mass media, that together seek to eradicate the Triple Lock, militarise the EU, and project power through military force. On the other side, the ‘neutralists’, comprise a majority of people in Ireland, NGOs, the President of Ireland, and a number of independent politicians that support active, positive neutrality and the retention of the Triple Lock.  The government has broken the social contract by failing to represent public preferences for active, positive neutrality, and has been working hard to prevent the public from knowing this fact. It appears the only potential ways left to stop the Government’s eradication of the Triple Lock are through mass public campaigns or through the courts. One final option, under Article 27 of the Constitution, Reference of Bills to the People, is a joint petition by a majority of members of Seanad Éireann and one-third of members of Dail Éireann, with approval from the President, to refer the bill for public decision in a referendum.