Ireland’s foreign policy comes home to roost

Why is it controversial? For one thing, it covers goods but not services. Secondly, it has taken an extraordinarily long time to reach this stage, and one could argue that it is being brought before the Oireachtas a little too late.

The second potential bombshell, if you'll excuse the clumsy metaphor, was McEntee's signal over the weekend that she will bring forward another piece of legislation that would effectively end the triple lock.

The Occupied Territories Bill was introduced by independent Senator Francis Black in 2018. But it lay in suspension for years, not progressing.

What accelerated matters was the outrageous mass killings by Palestinian militants on October 7 2023 and then Israel’s grotesque and prolonged response of slaughter that continues until this day.

To give the Government its due, it was one of the few EU governments willing to take a more robust stance on what was happening. It was among the first to call out war crimes and to describe the Gazan massacre as genocide.

That placed Ireland among a relatively small group of European countries willing to speak out, alongside Spain, Malta, Luxembourg and, more recently, France and the Netherlands, as well as several Nordic countries. By contrast, most EU states adopted cowardly and two-faced positions.

For supporters of Palestine, however, this was not enough; the clearest manifestation of that was the failure to advance the Occupied Territories Bill.

In the run-up to the summer of 2024, then Taoiseach Simon Harris and Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin signalled that they intended to adopt Francis Black's bill and bring it through the Oireachtas. They pointed out that changes would be needed, which was understandable. It appeared to be a positive step. However, the process has taken a purgatorial long time.

The Government's acceptance of the bill was balanced against what it viewed as a realistic assessment of Ireland's international relationships, particularly with the United States. It wanted to avoid unnecessarily alienating Washington.

What it should have done was publish the legislation shortly after the Government formed. Certainly, there would have been criticism from both Israel and the United States, but that storm would have passed.

Instead, it hesitated and allowed another debate to evolve. Opposition parties began calling for services to be included alongside goods. Yet evidence presented at Oireachtas committees suggested that, regardless of whether or not services were included, the economic impact would be relatively modest.

As former Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl observed, it does not matter if you are only talking about €10. The bill is largely symbolic. And symbolism matters. It sends a message to the world about the illegal occupation and blatant annexation of the Occupied Territories.

By delaying, however, the Government allowed the focus to shift. The debate became consumed by technical arguments about goods versus services.

By the time McEntee secured Cabinet approval to draft the legislation, other countries had already moved ahead with their own measures. What should have been viewed as a positive initiative now risks becoming just another cyclical Dáil controversy.

The same could be said of the debate over the triple lock. Irish neutrality has been a cornerstone of the State's foreign policy since the Second World War. Irish troops deployed overseas have traditionally served under UN mandates as peacekeepers.

When the Nice Treaty was rejected in 2001, subsequent surveys revealed that many voters were concerned that a more integrated Europe could lead to an erosion of Irish neutrality. That concern contributed to the development of the triple lock arrangements contained in the Seville Declaration of 2002.

Under the triple lock, any deployment of more than twelve Irish military personnel overseas requires the approval of the Government, the Oireachtas and the UN Security Council. For many years, that seemed a sensible operating principle.

However, in recent times the Security Council has become increasingly paralysed. New UN missions have become rare, and existing missions have seen their mandates lapse and one or other of the major powers exercises a veto. The Government argues that, given this reality, future Irish military deployments could be severely constrained.

For critics of the proposal to remove the triple lock — and that includes every opposition party — this represents another step down a slippery slope towards abandoning Irish neutrality and integrating into a broader European defence framework.

Many people in Ireland take comfort from the fact that we are a neutral country. Yet fewer have grappled with what neutrality means in a fragmented and increasingly complex international environment.

The threats that defined the Second World War have largely disappeared, but new dangers are emerging. What happens if a hostile actor attacks the infrastructure or cyber systems of another EU member state — or our own? What happens if we lack the capability, expertise or resources to respond? What happens when peacekeepers are required in a post-conflict country but the Security Council is veto-locked?

Defenders of the triple lock point out that there are alternative mechanisms through the UN General Assembly, but these routes are complicated and rarely used. To me, it appears the Government is trying to resolve both of these issues now, well before the next electoral cycle begins in earnest.