Paul Murphy confronts Taoiseach over 'illegal' use of force

Thanks, Ciann Comhairle. Taoiseach, on the 5th of March, Fianna Fáil Minister Robert Troy told the Dáil that Ireland's position on the use of force where there is no UN mandate or authorisation is well established and known. For fear that anyone has any doubt, let me be clear, it is wrong and it is illegal. So the use of force without UN mandate or authorisation is wrong and it is illegal. Absolutely correct, Minister Troy. But Taoiseach, how can you square that with your support for the Coalition of the Willing in Ukraine? And how can you square it with continuing to try to abolish the Triple Lock? The use of force is illegal unless it has a UN mandate. It's absolutely clear. That applies whether it's for peacekeeping or strengthening international security as it's put in your heads of bill of the Defence Amendment Bill. Is there disagreement in Fianna Fáil over this? You want to abolish the Triple Lock that enshrines the principle saying that we will only engage in the use of force when there is a UN mandate, when there's another Fianna Fáil Minister correctly saying that to do so is illegal. I made it clear, by the way, in my speech in the White House about Ireland's adherence to the UN nations and to the need for a UN mandate and to the international rules in terms of an international rules-based order. I take it as strongly as I did for the need for the war to end and for a peaceful resolution. We are dealing with a very repressive regime in Iran, which has for years now been conducting a surrogate war, in many respects, on an ongoing basis against many, many countries, and particularly in the Middle East. More repressive than Saudi Arabia, I would argue. Sorry, any regime that executes up to 60, I don't know, we haven't got a precise number, but thousands of their own citizens who went out into the street to protest were mowed down. I'm not defending any other regime or that, but this is a particularly... Deputy, it's not a back and forth. Respect for other members as well. The contrast with Ukraine is very different, but you will never acknowledge it. Deputy, please. You yourself and Deputy Morphy and others will never acknowledge that point. President Zelensky was a security nobody before he was invaded. I believe in dialogue, I believe in international rules-based order, I believe in a UN mandate, although the UN is paralysed. The UN Security Council, why we're doing the triple lock, is because the Security Council is paralysed. It's going to be very hard to get a peacekeeping mission going. But now, because of the Security Council, UNIFIL will end at the end of this year. And the opportunities for Irish peacekeepers, which we've been doing uninterrupted since 1958, is very much in the balance now. But no one seems to care about that on the opposition side in terms of our future role in peacekeeping. And on Cuba, it should be resolved by dialogue. And again, there's another regime that has a certain glorified sort of narrative around it here, but it has been quite a repressive regime as well, and in my view, has oppressed its own people for far too long. It needs to get with it in the modern era. It needs to engage in a sensible dialogue and try and get a resolution. It doesn't need, in my view, any external interventions. I've been to Cuba in the past as a Minister of Foreign Affairs. I was probably one of two or three European ministers at that time in the 07-10 period where I visited Cuba, hoping that we could get a more liberal view of things. But even then, they didn't release political prisoners that we had sought to release off. And I think President Castro and his successor, his brother, ruled with an iron fist, wrongly in my view. And the consequences for its citizens have been fairly dire. And hence, many, many have left and gone off to the United States and elsewhere. So it's not no one case is simple. There's a complexity and a history to a lot of these issues that defy simplistic sloganeering. And I think I've dealt with the triple lock issue, the UN mandate.