Sir, – The triple lock debate has raged now for several months, yet in that time, no one has asked the most relevant question of those claiming they are motivated to change the rules to deny the five permanent members of the UN Security Council the power to dictate where our peacekeeping forces should deploy.
While this sidesteps the urgent reason the UN was formed and the many issues that had to be resolved to get the project off the ground, there is a glaring problem that would arise should the triple lockbe dropped that seems to have gone under the radar.
Should Ireland decide to send a peacekeeping force without UN consent, what would happen if one of the major powers took exception to our plans and informed the Government that any such peacekeeping force would be regarded as hostile? This would arise, as is the case now, where one of these powers regards such a deployment as contrary to its best interests.
Would the Government still deploy? If the answer is yes, then that must be factored into the debate. If the answer is no, then what would dropping the triple lock actually achieve? – Yours, etc,
JIM O’SULLIVAN,
Rathedmond,
Sligo.
