About 400 people marched through Dublin city centre on Saturday, demanding the protection of the Republic’s neutrality, with some calling for a referendum on the Government’s plan to remove the triple lock.
Amid heavy downpours, the protesters marched from the Garden of Remembrance chanting: “Save our neutrality, keep the triple lock!” And “No to Nato!”
Traffic was brought to a halt as the march proceeded down O’Connell Street towards Leinster House.
The march organised by Together for Neutrality, a coalition of political parties and civil society organisations, was in opposition to the Government’s proposal to remove the triple lock system, described by Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald on Saturday as a “very dangerous course of action”.
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The Government has repeatedly argued that the triple lock – mandating that overseas deployment of Irish troops must be approved by the Government, Dáil Éireann, and the United Nations – allows permanent members of the UN Security Council, such as Russia and China, to veto the deployment of Irish troops for peacekeeping missions.
The Sinn Féin leader said the Government would do better arguing for reform of the UN, “rather than trying to sidestep it”.
She claimed the Government’s reasoning is “just one of the lines that they spin to try and justify what is an unjustifiable attack on the triple lock and on Irish neutrality. If they wish to abolish, damage and undermine Irish neutrality ... put it to a referendum.”
Agreeing that UN reform should be pursued rather than removal of the lock, Labour spokesman on defence Duncan Smith said such change would be “difficult and will be a long way off”.
He said no country should be able to veto Irish peacekeeping efforts.
“We’re not unaware that we do need a more sophisticated policy, but we don’t need to remove the triple lock to do those things,” he said. Mr Smith said mandates can be secured through the UN General Assembly, though he acknowledged these “may not be legally enforceable”.
Protesters, meanwhile, said there was “no coherent argument” for removing the triple lock, believing a referendum should be called.
“There’s a false sense of security in Ireland that this would go to a referendum ... It can just be taken away from us without our say and people don’t realise it,” said Kirsten Farrelly, one of the protesters on Saturday.
She believes the Government has been “incredibly sneaky in how they’ve put this across ... Getting cosier with Nato puts more of a target on our head.”
Ms Farrelly added: “I don’t want our country to be involved in any way with the war machine. We could be a leading light in peace and crafting a path where people can see peace in the future and avoid conflict, and what’s happening now is, ‘might is right’.”
