Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin’s desire to change the Triple Lock, and no longer require UN approval before sending more than 12 troops abroad, is facing a backbench pushback.<\/p>\n
The Fianna F\u00e1il parliamentary party will discuss the issue this week after several of its TDs signed a letter which argues that the new policy needs to be considered as “a matter of urgency.”<\/p>\n
The letter adds; “This is in view of the fact that this constitutes a fundamental change in traditional Fianna F\u00e1il policy as enunciated in successive ard-fheiseanna, policy manifestos, public statements.”<\/p>\n
The letter contends that the policy of requiring UN Security Council approval for overseas Defence Force missions “… was also a central factor in enabling the Government to persuade the Irish people to support the Nice and Lisbon referendums.”<\/p>\n
It is understood the letter has been signed by deputies Pat the Cope Gallagher, Willie O\u2019Dea, James O\u2019Connor, Padraig O\u2019Sullivan, John Lahart, Albert Dolan and others.<\/p>\n
The backbenchers argue the topic needs to be considered by the parliamentary party “in advance of the relevant legislation being presented to the D\u00e1il and Seanad.”<\/p>\n
The Programme for Government, ‘Securing Ireland’s Future’, gives a commitment to review the Triple Lock.<\/p>\n
It states: “We will continue to engage with international partners and we will reform the Triple Lock legislation whilst also ensuring that amendments to the legislation are in keeping with our values and policy of active military neutrality.”<\/p>\n
Triple lock ‘clearly not sustainable’ – Collins<\/p>\n
Minister of State Niall Collins has claimed “the world has changed” and maintaining the Triple Lock is unsustainable.<\/p>\n
Speaking on RT\u00c9’s Saturday with Cormac \u00d3 hEadhra, Mr Collins said Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin and the Government “are protecting Irish sovereignty”.<\/p>\n
“What we’re intending on doing here is protecting Irish sovereignty and allowing the Irish Government … to make a decision to allow members of our Defence Forces to partake in agreed peacekeeping missions.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, by virtue of the dynamics now within the United Nations, we’re not allowed to do that because of the veto,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Collins added; “So, you have people like Vladimir Putin and others who are now deciding if or if not, Irish troops can go on a peacekeeping mission.<\/p>\n
“And that’s just clearly not sustainable. The world has fundamentally changed. The geopolitical scenario has altered hugely. Anybody living in the real world can see that.”<\/p>\n
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Education Spokesperson Darren O\u2019Rourke described Mr Collins\u2019 claims as “nonsense”.<\/p>\n
“There’s a fundamental principle at stake here and this move from Government is a dangerous attack on neutrality, which the Irish people hold really, really dearly.<\/p>\n
“And I would say to each of those Fianna F\u00e1il TDs who’ve written to the Taoiseach to support the call for a referendum on this,” Mr O\u2019Rourke said.<\/p>\n
Social Democrats TD Sin\u00e9ad Gibney accused the Taoiseach of throwing decades worth of foreign policy “out the window” with this move.<\/p>\n
“[Fianna F\u00e1il TDs] rightly should be proud of their legacy of multilateralism being the direction of travel for our foreign policy over many decades, and Frank Aiken, and I know there are members of Fianna F\u00e1il who feel that.<\/p>\n
“Miche\u00e1l Martin seems very happy to chuck that out the window, despite the fact that only just over 10 years ago, he admitted and acknowledged and criticised Fine Gael for their attempts to do this because he said that the Triple Lock is at the core of Irish neutrality,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin’s desire to change the Triple Lock, and no longer require UN approval before sending more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-510722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}