Let's discuss Irelands neutrality

So, let’s have a real and informed discussion about this woolly and emotional myth of so-called Irish Neutrality, it might be helpful to open the discussion by realising exactly what being neutral truly means, and what the duties and responsibilities in International Law are on countries who declare themselves to be neutral.

The Department of Foreign Affairs cogently set out its understanding of neutrality in Ireland’s first ever White Paper on foreign policy, “Challenges and Opportunities Abroad”; Ireland’s White Paper on Foreign Policy 1995, when under, ‘International Security; Chapter Four, Paragraph 4.5 it stated;

“In the strict sense of international law and practice, neutrality and its attendant rights and duties do not exist in peacetime; they arise only during a state of war. Neutrality represents an attitude of impartiality adopted by a state towards the participants in a conflict and recognised as such by the belligerents. Such an attitude creates certain rights and duties between the neutral state and the belligerents which commence at the outbreak of war and end with its cessation”

This paragraph endorsed, without citing it specifically, the codified tenets of neutral states responsibilities in wartime enshrined in the Hague Conventions 1907, which while predating our independence, are in this context Customary International Law, namely ‘states practice over time’.

Now our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, in a recent speech said:?"However, neutrality in Ireland means that Ireland chooses when to intervene in conflicts to bring about peace and stability and we choose to intervene in this conflict now. It is a one-sided conflict for which one side bears all responsibility".?This statement is clearly at odds with any notion of neutral impartiality. It is clear from all of the statements being made by Government that Ireland has, rightly in my view, taken a side in this Russian/Ukraine war and is thus not neutral.

?Minister Coveney further stated in this same speech to the Seanad?: "We need to be clear with our messaging. We need to be part of a united effort to isolate Russia on this path and to continue to offer a channel of communication and diplomacy, as a way of ending this madness and looking to resolve legitimate concerns through politics and diplomacy".

The Minister is right in one part of his speech and that is where he stated:?"There is huge uncertainty here. There are no norms with a war of this scale. We will have to change our approach, be more flexible, act quicker, allocate money that was not budgeted for and?play our part in this war?in Europe where?Ireland is not neutral and is not going to be neutral".

So, the Minister has said Ireland is not neutral, not that we ever were. Now this leaves us with a question. It is continuously claimed by successive Irish governments, the President, civic groups, politicians of all hues, and many public commentators that Ireland was neutral. Indeed, in 2003, Mr Justice Kearns in the High Court said that despite the great historic value attached by Ireland to the concept of neutrality, that status was nowhere reflected in Bunreacht na h-éireann, or elsewhere in any domestic legislation. It was effectively?a matter of Government policy only, a policy to which, traditionally at least, considerable importance was attached.

It strikes me now that Irish people have a serious problem. Do words matter, does stated policy matter, or in this instance is policy being made up ‘on the hoof’? Can senior Ministers say anything they wish irrespective of the meaning of those words. On Tuesday, 1st March, Minister Simon Coveney TD, in his closing speech on a debate on Ukraine to the Seanad stated?"Ireland is not neutral and is not going to be neutral,?Ireland is militarily non-aligned and has been for many years".

If Ireland, as the Minister stated, is now militarily non-aligned, when and how did this policy change come about. Or is it that the Minister himself, or his officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs, do not recognise or understand the polar opposite positioning in international affairs of neutrality as against being non-aligned. Or is it as is most likely an opportunistic sleight of hand in language by the Minister and his officials in the almost certain belief that our political class, journalists, commentators, and the public will not notice, understand or care about this rush to be ‘on the right side of this shameful invasion of Ukraine. Whatever the true motivation of this charade, it is most certainly neither noble or becoming of a sovereign state, especially one that currently sits on the UN Security Council and self-lauds that responsibility.

Was this change discussed in the Dail and Seanad, was it raised before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence? I have been asking for this discussion for a long time and it has not happened in my 8 years in the Oireachtas. Can a Cabinet Minister change Government policy on a whim without Oireachtas approval? These are serious questions that must be addressed immediately.

So, what about this vexed question of Irelands neutrality. It is claimed by some that we have been neutral since the foundation of the state. Not so. Ireland has never met the requirements for neutrality as set out in the 1907 Hague Convention. The one and only time our neutrality was tested was between1939 and 1945; we failed the test. We provided approved flight paths across Donegal for Allied aircraft going to and returning to Derry from bombing missions. We provided weather forecast information to the Allies, indeed one crucial forecast led to the launch of the 'D Day' landings. These are just two vignettes of many such instances during the Second World War. The conflict in the Ukraine has laid the myth of our supposed neutrality bare.

It is simply not good enough for senior Government Ministers to change the language to suit the narrative of the day. Those who understand the difference between 'Neutrality and Military Non-Alignment' have called them out on their lack of knowledge or duplicity on such matters.

The time has come to resolve this vexed question for once and for all. Our ‘neutrality’ during the Second World War may well have been deemed necessary if neither noble nor legal.?However, the attachment to this spurious positioning of Ireland since 1945 in particular has been far more to do with the Machiavellian wish of civil servants since then in the Departments of Finance, Foreign Affairs, Defence, and latterly in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform not to resource our Defence Forces rather than any policy purity on our alleged neutrality.