Gerard P. Craughwell calls triple lock debate a 'complete red herring'

Thank you for being here and thank you for your comprehensive report. Can I say before I start, Chair, you said this was extremely important what we're doing here today. I respectfully suggest this is complete red herring. We have an air force that can't fly, a naval service that can only put one ship to sea and the entire Defence Forces is falling apart around us. There are 31 recommendations for the Air Corps dating back to 2021 and who we should have in here today is the Director of the Air Corps, the Secretary General of the Department and the Minister to find out who is culpable for allowing our Air Corps to collapse. In 2026 we become President of the European Union and any Prime Minister flying into Ireland will not be able to fly into Baldongal. We spent a quarter of a million each on aircraft for sea patrols. They cannot now fly from Baldongal. They have to go to Shannon. This is a complete red herring. We will unlikely have troops to send anywhere. And we should be talking about bread and butter issues and not this goddamn triple lock. I'm indifferent to it one way or the other. I've always seen it as a nonsense. So I'll proceed with a few questions if I may now, but I really feel that I needed to make those points. With respect to the veto, a number of my colleagues have mentioned the power of the United Nations Security Council versus the General Assembly. Has the Department got legal advice with respect to the role the Security Council has and, if you want, the functionality it has versus what the General Assembly can do? And has it sought advice from the United Nations itself? Do we have a copy of the United Nations peacekeeping and peace enforcement policy? And can that copy be made available to the Committee? Because a lot of really good points have been made here today with respect to the number of troops that can be deployed in the event of the abolition of the triple lock. And my colleague, Senator Clonan, is right. It is not a change. It is the abolition of the triple lock. With respect to the triple lock, and this may be an unfair question to you, Ms. McGuire, and you can tell me that in your reply. Is there any other professional body in the state of Ireland that is subject to the same ludicrous rules as the triple lock? For example, can we only send 12 teachers abroad? Should we send no more than 12 politicians abroad on St. Patrick's weekend? You know, why are we singling out the Defence Forces for this type of treatment? And I will come on to the ward report in the second iteration. It does need to be done. You mentioned in the documentation that has been supplied three criteria for troops being sent abroad. Evacuation of Irish citizens, military close protection operations, deployment of Defence Force personnel in support of international operations. What about port visits for the Navy? What about counter-terrorism operations? Suppose an Aer Lingus or a Ryanair jet is hijacked and brought to a country who do not have special forces and are unable to carry out a counter-terrorist operation. Should the Irish government be asked to send out special forces to recover that aircraft, are they going to be able to do that? What about hostage recovery? What about rescue of our EU colleagues, citizens abroad? So, what I'm saying is the statement needs to be much broader, if you're going to do away with this, the statement needs to be much broader to cover all sorts of eventualities. We're talking about legislation here that will see me into the grave and maybe a number of you younger people as well. So, we need that legislation to be broad. Now, we're talking about an international force and we're talking about the Defence Amendment Act. This would be the only type of international force in existence in 1960. Is it not true that in the 1950s there was a UN mandated operation under Chapter 8 and that was in Korea, if I'm not mistaken? Then we talk about the United Nations Security Council alone hold the power to take decisions which Member States are obliged to implement. I agree wholeheartedly with that point. However, I suggest that the statement is incomplete, in that a Member State is obligated to implement the United Nations Security Council resolution, which confirmed either a mandate or an authorisation. And I notice we're steering away from the NATO words when we're talking about authorisation. There are a number of missions that have been held under the United Nations authorisation, which are NATO-led organisations. We talk about the EU and all the other nice little things, but we don't talk about NATO. It is a fact that Irish troops have served under NATO command, under UN authorisation, and you might deal with that. A number of my colleagues have mentioned the Ireland's policy on military neutrality, and we have this bandied around the place all the time. Now, would you agree with me that neutrality is codified in customary international law, that the states practice over time? In the Hague Convention of 1907, nowhere in these conventions is there any subdivision of neutrality referred to. A state is either neutral or it is not. And I constantly hear the Taoiseach, members of the House refer to Ireland's military neutrality and political neutrality. Where is the legislation, where is the authority to use these terms? I can find nowhere in customary international law anything to do with political neutrality or military neutrality. We will be trying to get to the bottom of Ireland's posture with respect to neutrality or military non-alignment, and we will be trying to understand why these terms are conflated with the triple lock. We're looking at the triple lock. We're not looking at anything else, but they're all being conflated together. So we need to do that. I'm going to hold on that for a few seconds. I have a few seconds left. Thank you, Ms. McGuire. Sorry about that. A lot of stuff there. Thank you, Senator. Thanks for that. Yeah, so just, I suppose, going back to the role of the Security Council, and you were asking about legal advice and, you know, so I think anything we're doing is part of drafting the heads of the bill and as we get into the text of the bill as well, that's done with the support and advice of the Attorney General. So that's what we're getting at, as well as our own research into it. We're very happy that there is the full peacekeeping charter with probably the relevant pieces of Chapter 6, 7 and 8 that we'd be very happy to supply to the committee as part of their work. In relation to just, I suppose, when we're looking at the non-dispatch of personnel overseas, where it is not as part of an international force, and these are all these other circumstances that you refer to, and the type of examples you have referred to are actually covered or will be covered with the 2006. So the evacuation of citizens, that is one that, you know, so if you're talking about a hijacked aircraft or, you know, you're talking about an emergency situation, there is a whole list of circumstances where the military would be dispatched to assist in there. Sorry, I'll just interrupt you for a second, if I may. If there is a list, that list needs to be made available to this committee, and it needs to be made available to this committee immediately. Yeah, it's under the head that updates the Section 3 of the 2006 Act. So all the circumstances that are listed there. So we're trying to broaden out in as much as we could, and especially what has changed since 2006. So a lot of the language was around humanitarian, so that, you know, in the event of a crisis overseas, you know, whether there might have been a disaster, an emergency, unfortunately, they're coming more into the kind of sharper security space. So we wanted to be very clear, you know, like, you know, the evacuation of citizens from Kabul, that type of where they are, members of the Ranger Wing as part of an emergency civil assist team going out and evacuating citizens. So we're trying to make it as exhaustive as possible, but if there's particular language we're missing, we would very much welcome your input into that, and we will ensure we will include it. So just, I suppose, just you mentioned about the definition of military neutrality, and, you know, so the, you're right, the practice in government is that the Ireland's policy of military neutrality means that we don't participate in military alliances, or any common or defense arrangement, but then we're not, when it comes to something like Ukraine, we are not neutral. I don't think, I don't, you know, I don't think, I think that reflects the position that we should assist with the Ukrainian people, and we've welcomed Ukrainian. Again, I need to interrupt you on that, I'm sorry about this, Chair. I'm just keeping an eye who have allowed you extra time. The Ukrainian issue, I mean, it is a matter of serious contingent to me. We're talking about a situation, my colleague Tom Clonan made the point that a government majority can do anything it wants. In the case of Ukraine, a minister without ever coming to the Oireachtas made a statement that, in the case of Ukraine, we are not neutral. That committed this entire country, not just our defense forces, but the entire country, to be involved in a conflict. And I fully support Ukraine, 100%, but what is the Oireachtas here for, if such decisions are not brought before the Oireachtas? And this is the dangers that we're opening ourselves to, unless we have very clear parameters as to what is allowed and what's not allowed. So I can see you getting anxious over time. I think that's an important line, but I have allowed you some extra time. Thank you.