The Workers’ Party has condemned the announcement by Taoiseach Simon Harris that he intends to abolish the Triple Lock on Ireland’s overseas military commitments. 

Garrett Greene, Workers’ Party representative for Cabra-Glasnevin, said: “It is incredible that, at a time of the most acute housing crisis, hospital crisis, social care crisis in many decades, the priority of this Taoiseach is to clear the way so that Irish troops can be deployed in NATO or EU military overseas adventurism at an unknown cost to the Irish taxpayer. This is an insult to the Irish people.”

“The Taoiseach is trying to create a narrative that the international bogeymen of Russia and China have a veto over the deployment of Irish peacekeepers abroad. If Mr Harris bothers to look at the records, he will see that neither of these countries have ever vetoed Irish peacekeepers being involved in any mission. Five countries, including the Western trio of the USA, UK and France, have vetoes on the creation of UN peacekeeping missions, and these are the countries that have used their veto most often and most negatively.”

“We would like to remind the Taoiseach that the Triple Lock is not either a foreign import or a foreign imposition. The Irish people alone placed the Triple Lock into Irish and International law. It is a guarantee of some limited neutrality devised by the Irish government as part of the second referendum on the Nice Treaty, which was accepted by the Irish people in 2002 and was then appended as a Declaration to the Nice Treaty when it was finally ratified.”

“The legal reality in international law is that it is only the United Nations, with a global membership of almost 200 states, despite its manifest weaknesses, that has the global authority to create an international peace-keeping force. The EU, with a membership of 27 states, does not have that legal authority and NATO, an international armed alliance under the control of the Pentagon, most certainly does not have that authority.”

“Four years ago, after the 2020 general election, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens agreed the continuation of the Triple Lock as part of their five year programme. Now we can see that this promise to the Irish people was a sham. It is both noteworthy and shameful that the only firm commitment for action made by Taoiseach Harris is one to break one of the clear written terms of the coalition’s programme for government. We can promise that this surrender to NATO and the EU militarists will not be accepted passively by the Irish people.”