Gerard P. Craughwell: Calls 'Triple Lock' a Red Herring on Defence

Thank you very much, Chair. Dr Bourke, Mr Power, you're very welcome. Just to put my position clear before I start, my position is the triple lock is a red herring in the current context of the Defence Forces and where we are with the Defence Forces, and we should be discussing the other aspects of the bill. I know the Chair has said we will get to those, and I accept those, but I think they're far more important when you're talking about the impact of court-martials, when you're talking about the powers to suspend personnel, etc., etc. We don't have the wherewithal to send people on missions even if we got rid of the triple lock in the morning, so that's why I say it's a red herring. Furthermore, the language being used, and I'm very happy that, Dr Bourke, you adverted to some of the language that's being used with respect to academics in this area at the moment. It is seriously, seriously undermining the actual project we're trying to deal with here. I believe in a neutral Ireland, however, and I ask you both this, since Ireland became a republic, albeit we weren't around in 1907 when the Hague Convention was founded, at no stage have we ever registered in The Hague our neutrality. At the start of the Second World War, when there still was a government in the Netherlands, we did not register as a neutral state. So I do not believe we are neutral. I would like to see the state an honourable neutral state capable of defending its own situation. So I have three questions for both witnesses today. Firstly, is Ireland a neutral country in the context of customary international law? And if you believe that it is, what are the tangible elements leading to any assertion of Ireland being a neutral country, other than the government stating it is without any such assertion being contested with empirical evidence? Secondly, if you believe that Ireland is a neutral state, why is it that currently Austria and Switzerland and up until recently Finland and Sweden pursued their neutrality in a polar opposite manner to Ireland's alleged neutrality? And thirdly, article 2 of the Hague Convention states, and I quote, belligerents are forbidden to move troops or convoys of either ammunition or war supplies across the territory of neutral power. Ireland's borders are on land, at sea and in the air. And indeed, we have legislation currently before the House that seeks to amend the Air Navigation Act to prevent the transit of weapons to Irish airspace. We don't know what's up there, and even if we did, we can't get up to see it. And is this, in your view, absolute tokenism for the sake of a headline? If we can't do anything about it, why are we wasting our time even thinking about it? I'll leave it at that for the moment. We'll have further questions later, Chair. Thank you very much, Senator. Just so you know, I worked in the UK until 2022, and we suffered a lot of general slander about my profession there, about experts and academics, and I just would not like to see that culture being recreated in my own country. So in the same way as I really admire all of you for going into politics, it's extremely difficult in our contemporary time. I also think we need to be very careful about language and assertions when it comes to my profession, because once you lose that confidence, it's gone, and it's very hard to get it back for our universities. So that's why I urge caution. I think with regards to neutrality, look, I'll put my cards on the table here. I think Ireland is an aligned country, which means that we have aligned is... So we do not have treaty obligations that means that we will automatically go to war for our partners, our allies, right? So we're not a member of NATO. There's no prospect of us being a member of NATO, but we are aligned to the European Union. And if you talk to, you know, people in Switzerland about why they could not join the European Union, it is because they do not believe... They have a view that their neutrality is still in play, just about. They believe that joining the United Nations in 2002 seriously dented their neutrality in terms of the Hague understanding of neutrality, of complete non-alignment. So I think, you know, that's my view on it. Obviously not the government's view on it, but that's my view. And so that doesn't mean that we're going to join NATO anytime soon, but it means that we do have European obligations. We are involved in EU missions in Ukraine, for example. We are stating very clearly that we are politically not neutral within an EU context. Look, defence, military strategy flows from policy. So if you're saying, here's my policy, but my strategy is completely different, that's incoherent to me. And I don't think a lot of our EU member states, particularly in Central European, Eastern Europe, understand that. It's not clear to them. I would agree in terms of... Look, in terms of... I think we need an absolute focus on our defence capabilities, and I really welcome the committee's, you know, attention on that. But, you know, for me, the position of the naval service within the wider defence forces is completely untenable. As an island country, you know, this should have been recognised a long, very long time ago. You could reconfigure the defence forces to a very maritime role that would make a lot of strategic sense in terms of national defence, right? Including, perhaps, Marines, right? And having a maritime special force and a greater maritime special forces capability, much more maritime air corps capabilities. You know, you could... It'll be completely, I think, there's a logic to that. So I really welcome that, you know, the committee's future focus on this because, yes, I think a lot of our debates about defence in Ireland are about very, sort of, lofty... So, I mean, they're important issues, but we need to do both at the same time. We need to have this conversation, but as you say, I'm looking forward to the committee as well really digging into our maritime security strategy and capabilities and making sure that the Commission on Defence, some of those recommendations, I'll let the committee decide which ones they strongly advocate or perhaps don't, that these are implemented as quickly as possible. Thank you. So, to address some of your questions as best I remember them there, Senators, so feel free to correct me if I go off-piste. No, we don't... We haven't signed up to the Hague Conventions, but they neither have a lot of countries. I think it's important, perhaps, that we understand... Maybe one of the things that gives rise to the problems in some of the discussions that we have in these matters is that people have very different interpretations and definitions of what is neutrality. And you mentioned the Swiss, and it's interesting. The Swiss and the Swedes, just a brief little interpretation from my own perspective of having worked alongside a number of them. I've worked in... You know, aside from my military service, I've some considerable time spent on deployments as what they call a civil-military coordination officer within UN missions, which has given me an insight, both civil and militarily, into the capacities of different countries. And the Swedes and the Finns have largely been very much aligned with NATO long before they joined NATO. A senior member of the Swedish security services said to me once, we knew each other quite a while, it was after the invasion of Ukraine. And when Sweden declared, he said, that was for political reasons, that was to show the Russians that there was pushback. It was very easy for them to do it because they had everything in place to be able to align, to coordinate and to cooperate. And I thought there was a lesson for us there in that they had maintained a particular foreign policy option until it was no longer suitable for them. But then for the good of their national security and people, they were able to throw the switch very quickly. I think that's something that we need to be considering. Just because you prepare does not mean that you have to go down that route. We prepare all kinds of fire defences, not in the desire to see a fire. And the other thing I would say, and I think you'll find this maybe interesting, some of you may remember. We're over time now. Sorry, but I think it's an important point. During the forums on international security, Professor Lauren Kirchhoff of Basel University's Swiss Peace Institute was asked a question about Swiss neutrality versus Irish one. And he said, neutrality is not a religion. It is a foreign and policy concept. It has to be handled in the interest of a state. It has to be adapted to certain contexts and situations. And he added that, as regards Sweden's attitude to NATO, which you might find interesting, he said, talking about his country, we seek to strengthen international cooperation. The Swiss seek to be close and cooperate with the EU and NATO, but from a defence perspective, the Swiss value their relationship with NATO more. The Swiss also have an interoperable partnership with NATO through PFP, as do we. They seek to contribute to NATO too, rather than just receive resilience, crisis management, cyber security capabilities. In other words, what the Swiss are saying is, yes, we continue to be neutral, but we continue to develop relationships so we can cooperate and coordinate. And Professor Camino Kyo, at a conference in this country, she's a researcher on maritime matters for the UN, reminded us that when it comes to the sea, Ireland cannot police the seas that it is responsible for by itself. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Power. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Power. Thank you.