Before we proceed, I wish to remind Members of the standards expected in the Chamber. This House must be able to debate legislation and reach decisions. The Opposition has every right to challenge, object and oppose. Equally, every Member has the right to be heard without interruption. However strongly we disagree, we must respect one another’s right to speak. That applies equally to both sides of this House. Members must make their case through the strength of their arguments within the time allocated, not through shouting, displaying placards or intimidating Members. Our constituents are best served by effective debate and respectful conduct. I expect both from every Member.
Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
In fairness, this is the second or third time since I came into the House that the Ceann Comhairle has said that and no one has been punished.
Please, Deputy Moran-----
People should be punished for breaking the rules, not stand up and make lectures.
I am on my feet, Deputy.
I agree. I think Micheál Martin should be punished.
Excuse me. I have just made a statement that is relevant to every Member of the House. I mentioned "every Member". I ask the Deputy to respect what I said and respect the direction of the Chair-----
I hope Members respect the Ceann Comhairle.
-----if we are to be effective in carrying out the business. I call Deputy Mary Lou McDonald.
Tá meas mór ag muintir na hÉireann ar ár neodracht. Ní féidir le Fianna Fáil nó Fine Gael fáil réidh leis an nglas triarach gan cead na ndaoine. Caithfear an cheist seo a chur faoi bhráid an phobail i reifreann. Today marks a very significant day for Ireland and our future. Today, the Government is bringing forward legislation to dismantle the triple lock. The consequences of the legislation, if passed, cannot be underestimated. The Government is tearing away current vital safeguards on the deployment of Irish troops overseas. It is clearing the way for this Government and future governments to send Irish troops into military operations without a UN mandate. Scrapping the triple lock opens the door to Ireland being dragged into EU military structures, dangerous alliances and further alignment with NATO. None of this is supported by the Irish people.
Hear, hear.
Yesterday, I put it to the Taoiseach that the Government’s plan to abolish the triple lock and dismantle neutrality piece by piece flies in the face of our country’s values of peace and peacekeeping, diplomacy, respect for international law and, crucially, independent Irish foreign policy, all of the things that allow Ireland to speak powerfully against war and for justice and human rights. The Taoiseach’s response was to reach for theatrics and nonsense. It was a churlish response beneath the gravity and seriousness of this issue.
The Taoiseach has no mandate from the Irish people to dismantle our neutrality. He does not have the political or moral authority to overturn assurances previously given to the Irish people, and nor do his colleagues in Fine Gael or in Michael Lowry's group for that matter. He cannot simply airbrush commitments made by Fianna Fáil Governments to the Irish people on neutrality. Remember that the Irish people only passed the Nice and Lisbon treaties on the back of explicit guarantees that Irish neutrality would be protected. The triple lock was at the heart of that or, as the Taoiseach once put it, "at the core of our neutrality". I clearly remember Fianna Fáil Ministers and, indeed, a Fianna Fáil Taoiseach giving those commitments to the public, but now a Fianna Fáil Taoiseach and a Fianna Fáil-led Government seek to walk away from those commitments. The Taoiseach’s approach is to downplay, dismiss and trivialise his shameful manoeuvring. The dishonesty is staggering.
This is not a technical issue. It is not a minor matter. We are talking about an enormous shift in foreign policy, one with far-reaching consequences for generations to come, yet debate is shut down, speaking time is guillotined and scrutiny is avoided. Above all else, the Government wants to rob the Irish people of their rightful place as custodians of our neutrality. How disgraceful. It is not for the Taoiseach, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or the Government to decide the future of Irish neutrality. That is for the people to decide. They have a democratic duty to seek the people’s permission. I put it to the Taoiseach again: ask this question in a referendum. Let the people of Ireland call this. Let the people vote on this because anything else is a profound betrayal by the Government.
Deputies
Hear, hear.
Well said.
Aontaím leis an Teachta go bhfuil meas mór ag muintir na hÉireann ar ár bpolasaí a bhaineann le neodracht na tíre. Tá an Rialtas taobh thiar den pholasaí sin. Níl sé ar intinn ag an Rialtas in aon chor athrú a dhéanamh ar neodracht na tíre. The Deputy’s presentation of this issue is completely disingenuous and dishonest. Our reform of the triple lock is fundamentally about keeping alive the Irish tradition of peacekeeping and, indeed, keeping alive our capacity to have an independent foreign policy. In no way does it undermine Irish military neutrality. The Deputy, on the other hand, is essentially willing to abandon our proud tradition of peacekeeping. We are not. The only motivation here is to retain the capacity to participate in peacekeeping. The Deputy wants Russia, the United States and China to have the power of veto over whether Ireland ever again in the future participates in a peacekeeping mission. That is the essential difference. She has created false narrative after false narrative but the essential difference here is how we develop a capacity. We need to be honest with our military about this as well, including with soldiers and their families.
Yes.
We do.
Let us not pretend that everything will be rosy in the garden if we just do not go through with reform of our legislation. It will not be. We know that because the ending of the UNIFIL mission is happening at the insistence of the United States to take away the Security Council's support for the work that Irish peacekeepers, and many other peacekeepers working with us, have been doing for many years in Lebanon, endeavouring to keep the peace there. I find it extraordinary, given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Remember that Russia is on the Security Council. We have a member of the Security Council wilfully violating the UN Charter, committing terrible war crimes and bombing civilians and it is the Deputy’s proposition that that country should have a veto on whether Irish peacekeepers enter into a peacekeeping mission. That is the stark choice facing us. That is what the Deputy is saying-----
Be honest.
-----that Russia will have the veto and our foreign policy-----
Please be honest with us.
-----will be dependent on Russia’s say-so at the UN Security Council. The UN Security Council is no longer functioning. It is paralysed. The world is much more polarised by the hegemonic powers, by the US, Russia and China. We should retain-----
The Taoiseach is giving up on the UN.
No, I am not, but I am realistic about-----
Without interruption, please.
-----the United Nations and the Security Council. What we are simply saying is that we need to reform that-----
Ask the people.
-----if our military is to have any prospect of engagement in peacekeeping and assisting Irish citizens. We need to reform our legislation to make sure that, where our citizens are in crisis situations around the world, we can get more than 12 troops out to assist them.
We must also remember our role in Liberia and Chad. What was that role? That role was ensuring humanitarian aid to huge populations. We played a very noble role and Irish troops led that particular mission on behalf of many others. All we want to do is maintain peacekeeping. We are not joining NATO. We have no plans to join NATO. We have made that very clear. We are not part of any military alliance. Within the Constitution, there is a prohibition on mutual defence. This is a new concept that we must now have a referendum on an issue that does not involve any amendment, change, addition or deletion to the Irish Constitution. We have never had referendums bar those amending, deleting or adding to the Constitution.
I thank the Taoiseach. I call Deputy McDonald.
The Deputy seems to now be undermining-----
The allocated time is up, Taoiseach. I call Deputy McDonald.
-----the whole process of parliamentary democracy.
The triple lock has been described here in the Dáil, in this democratic place, by a Fianna Fáil Taoiseach as the ultimate, legally binding guarantee of Ireland’s sovereign military neutrality.
That is the fact of the matter. The necessity for a UN mandate is essential to ensure our compliance with international law and to ensure that our actions are absolutely consistent as a non-aligned, neutral State. Those are the facts of the matter. The Taoiseach reaches for Russia. He could reach for others because the Russians are not on their own in violating international law and dismissing the UN system. He reaches for the fact that we need UN reform, which I agree with, as a pretext and camouflage to ditch Irish neutrality. He is wrong to do that. That is a shameful position. Let me put it to the Taoiseach again - we can debate this here - that the core of the position is this-----
Thank you Deputy, your time is up.
The Irish people get to call Irish neutrality. The Taoiseach gave them assurances to get Lisbon and Nice passed.
The Taoiseach to respond.
He offered up the triple lock as the guarantee mechanism. Now he wants to take it away.
Respectfully, Deputy, your time is up. The Taoiseach to respond.
He cannot do that without asking the people's permission.
For over 60 years now, you-----
I am not 60.
-----as in the Sinn Féin Party, the left-----
I just want to put that on the record.
I am talking about the Sinn Féin Party, the left and the far left, which for over 60 years have said neutrality was dead. In 1972 when we had a referendum on entering the European Union-----
We said you were killing it.
Stop. Go back over the manifestos-----
That is very different.
They declared that neutrality is over. They declared that it was going to be over in 2003, 2008 and ever since.
Then we got the triple lock.
Neutrality was not dead.
We said the Government was killing it. That is very different.
Do not be so disrespectful.
Neutrality was not dead. They kept, decade after decade, trotting out this line about a military European Union complex, that we would be part of a European army and that our neutrality was dead in the water.
So we got the Seville declaration. That was great, was it not? The Government is tearing it up.
All of it has been proven to date to have been false assertions and false narratives and they are doing the same here. I did not just reach for Russia. I said earlier that the United States has essentially stopped the UNIFIL mission-----
What about Israel?
The time is up.
-----in Lebanon.
Israel.
I call Deputy Cian O'Callaghan.
The United States is on the Security Council. Israel is not.
I am aware of that.
Are you going to stand, Deputy O'Callaghan?
The United States is on it. Let us argue the facts.
I am arguing the facts.
Taoiseach, Deputy O'Callaghan is now on his feet.
The fundamental point is that they want to end peacekeeping but we want to keep it going.
(Interruptions).
Please, your time is up. I have called Deputy O'Callaghan.
The treatment of vulnerable children in the care of the State is an ongoing horror and scandal. Yesterday The Irish Times reported from the High Court on the shocking cases of three of these children. A 14-year-old girl who has mild learning difficulties is being subjected to horrific sexual exploitation by multiple men. The girl has been approached by men who gave her alcohol, cocaine and other drugs. Tusla and the Government are fully aware of the depraved sexual abuse of this girl, which is happening because Tusla is unable to provide her with a bed in a special care unit. She is 14 years old. Another girl is also currently being sexually exploited by a large number of men. She has been seen on social media distressed and under the influence of drugs. Again, this girl is also in State care where she is supposed to be protected and cared for. Instead, she is being subjected to vile and disgusting sexual abuse. Tusla and the Government are fully aware that this is happening and are effectively saying they cannot do anything about it. Another child, a 16-year-old boy, is involved in criminality and is taking and selling drugs. He was holding large quantities of heroin and crack cocaine for older men. Gardaí have now seized these drugs and he is in very serious danger. Again, there is no special care place available for this vulnerable boy.
The Taoiseach told my Social Democrats colleague, Deputy Quaide, yesterday that nearly half of the State's 26 special care beds remain closed because of staffing shortages. Those staffing shortages have existed since 2018, for eight years. There has never been a time when all 26 beds have been open. How many children have been failed by the State during all of those years? How many children have gotten hooked on drugs, been pulled into criminality, or been sexually exploited and raped? Successive Governments have tolerated this abject failure of children that the State is supposed to protect. An article in The Irish Times today reports that Tusla's new plan to tackle this crisis is to reduce the number of children it takes into special care. This is a shocking approach to take. What is happening on this Government's watch is an outrage and the current approach to addressing it is not working. It has not worked for the last eight years. It is not acceptable to use staffing shortages as an excuse. Children are being failed and the Government must act. What is the Taoiseach going to do to protect them? Does he agree with the Tusla plan to reduce the number of children it takes into special care?
First of all, as I said yesterday, the case of the young girl referred to in yesterday's reports is deeply serious and extremely worrying. We are engaging across government with the Minister, Deputy Foley, on this specific case and other special care cases, some of which Deputy O'Callaghan has raised. We will do everything we possibly can to protect vulnerable children. Those men and people who are exploiting children need to be pursued rigorously also and brought to justice.
There is an enormous increase in demand on child protection and welfare services. It is not an excuse but there are very significant issues in terms of recruitment and retention of special care workers. In 2025 alone there was a 10% increase in referrals and they increased by a further 11% in the first quarter of 2026. Referrals have more than doubled since 2014. We have responded with sustained investment so it is not a resources issue. We have increased Tusla's budget to about €1.4 billion in 2027 and have expanded overall staffing by over 343.
The special care area serves to protect and engage with a very small cohort of young people with the most acute and complex needs. Those settings require exceptionally high staffing ratios and specialist expertise. There has to be at least one staff member per child throughout the day, in addition to supervisory staff and the units obviously have to be covered on a 24-7 basis. That means seven individuals for every one young person. Children with particularly complex needs may require up to twice that level of staffing, or 14 staff to one individual child or young person. Currently, 15 of the 26 special care beds are staffed. The complexity of these cases is why Tusla has focused on workforce reform in the last number of years. Changes have occurred in an effort to increase staff numbers in terms of grading and so on. I will not go into the detail of that now. The changes are significant enough in terms of dealing with the recruitment issue and are delivering results. Tusla has successfully filled five new social care manager posts, two deputy social care manager posts and 20 special care worker roles as of September. We also have to create stronger care pathways so that young people can transition to more appropriate settings when ready, helping to maximise the use of special care capacity. Two new step-down units will open by the end of this year, with a third opening in early 2027.
I asked whether the Taoiseach agrees with the Tusla plan to actually reduce the number of children taken into special care. Does he think that is an appropriate response, not to meet the need that is there and not to provide a sufficient level of staffing? What are his thoughts on that and what specifically is he going to do about this? These shortages have been going on for eight years. There have been at least nine High Court judgments on this issue over those eight years calling out the lack of response from the State. It is not acceptable. On staffing shortages, I am sure there are challenges but they need to be addressed. The Government and the Taoiseach need to ensure that those staffing shortages are addressed so that children in these dire situations get the care that they need. It is not acceptable to say that this is difficult and it is not getting addressed. We have had eight years of successive Governments not tackling this. What specifically is the Taoiseach going to do to fix this? What is his view on Tusla's plan to reduce the number of special care places?
I do not agree that nothing has been done over the last number of years. The services have expanded. I just want to make the point, and I say this in the most objective sense, that we need to be careful around the interaction of the courts, the Oireachtas, the Government and proper policy. Policy resides in here. What I mean by that is that over three decades we have been deinstitutionalising care.
That is the fundamental direction of travel that I think everyone in the House agrees with. That does not mean we do not have institutionalisation. We do, in this case for specific care needs of children. I remember being Minister for Health and Children in the early 2000s when many court orders came in threatening jail for Ministers. What was coming to us was directly contrary to the policy position outlined by a unit in the Department at that time.
Does the Taoiseach agree that these children need special care?
Will the Deputy hear my point? We need to be mindful of that. I fully accept the judge's decision. I have no issue with sending the details to the Minister. That is fine. We need to be careful that we protect the overall policy idea of not institutionalising every issue pertaining to children.
I will do a rare thing this afternoon and pay the Taoiseach two compliments on housing. It may not be a surprise that both come with qualifications. Last week I was glad to join new Labour Party councillors Peter O'Brien, Martha Fanning and others for the turning of the sod at Dún Brí in Dundrum. The Land Development Agency, LDA, and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council will deliver 934 new homes at the site of the former Central Mental Hospital. It is really welcome to see the LDA beginning to deliver. However, we now need it delivering at even greater scale. Turning the sod is one thing, but a family turning the key in the door of their own home is another.
Speaking of turning the key, I have a second compliment. The Labour Party welcomes the housing Minister's plans to end turnkey acquisitions for social housing by the end of next year. For far too long, the State has pumped public money into buying turnkey units from private developers while failing to build our own State capacity to deliver homes. It means the Government has been giving developers tax breaks, selling them public land at a discount and then acquiring those homes back at a premium. It makes no sense and is bad value for money. As the Labour Party has said for years, the private market cannot be relied on to deliver the homes people need at the scale needed. We know this, with almost 6,000 children homeless. That is why the Labour Party has proposed a State construction company along the lines of the National Building Agency established by Seán Lemass and Fianna Fáil in the 1960s. The principle is the same. The State must build homes directly and at scale. While we welcome the ending of turnkey acquisitions, we are concerned that social housing delivery will fall off a cliff after 2028 when the new policy comes into effect. That is why we are saying the Government must effectively resource the LDA and councils to build the necessary homes. The problem is that people now lack trust in the Government's capacity to deliver homes. Its 2024 election campaign was predicated on a false premise. It delivered 10,000 fewer homes that year than it promised. It also unfortunately has form on half-baked and half-abandoned gimmicks like the housing tsar, the apartment standards U-turn and, of course, the notorious "beds in sheds", as they were christened by the Labour Party housing spokesperson, Conor Sheehan.
The Government's promises on social housing are no different. Take the former Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend in my constituency. After long negotiations, a deal was struck in 2017 to provide 900 social and affordable homes. A decade on, we see the developer reneging on the commitment to deliver any affordable purchase homes, robbing local people of the chance to own their own home. To add insult to injury, Simon Coveney, the former housing Minister who brokered the deal, has taken up a lobbying job for the developer Johnny Ronan. You could not make it up. It is a question of trust. How can the Taoiseach reassure communities of his Government's capacity to build homes? How can he guarantee the delivery of social housing will not fall off a cliff in 2028?
I welcome the Deputy's contribution in respect of the 1,000 new units in Dundrum. She was at the event last week. It is a real demonstration of momentum in house building and of the role of the Land Development Agency. I do not believe we need two national building agencies. We have the LDA. We do not need a new national construction agency alongside it, which the Deputy seems to be proposing.
I will make a point on social housing because I have heard a lot of commentary. Even this morning, somebody said that only 9,000 were built last year. Since 2020, close to 60,000 social homes have been added by this Government and the previous Government to the social housing stock. In the previous five years it was 34,500. That is the level of momentum on social housing that has occurred in the past five years. That needs to be acknowledged. There has been a consistent commitment to social housing since 2020 that outstrips anything done in the past two decades. We are now the fastest in Europe on completions per capita in house construction. We are completing approximately 7.2 units per 1,000 of the population. That is from Euroconstruct. We are more than double the European average of three units and triple the United Kingdom average of 2.4 units. Completions rose by 40% between 2022 and 2026. Ireland was one of only five European countries where output grew while it declined overall on the Continent. Between July 2020 and now, we have delivered in excess of 180,000 houses. We need to do far more. We acknowledge that.
I know the Deputy has poured scorn on some of the initiatives. We are doing everything we can legislatively, and through the Housing Activation Office, the Critical Infrastructure Bill and enabling important investment in infrastructure, particularly water and the grid, to enable more housing to be built. There is also public transport that will unblock and facilitate substantially more social and affordable housing.
I think the Deputy welcomed the decision on turnkey. We are endeavouring to transition to get a more sustainable market in house construction for the coming decade. The Minister made it clear this morning that we will continue to work with the local authorities. The local authorities will still be in a position to work with builders with a view to building houses they can contract and finance. What we are doing in the context of the turnkey decision is making sure that individual purchasers using the first home or help to buy schemes will not be squeezed out of it by the local authority buying an entire estate. That is a good reform. We have to put pressure on some local authorities to get back to house building. Some have been far better than others in respect of building social housing in their areas.
The Labour Party's policy is to transform the Land Development Agency into a State construction company, not to create a new entity. The Taoiseach always wilfully misunderstands that. I heard nothing from him in his response about the effective resourcing of the LDA and local authorities to ensure they have capacity to deliver once the policy of buying turnkey homes has ended. I am putting the Taoiseach on notice that he has one year to effectively resource the LDA and councils. Otherwise, the capacity of the State to build homes at scale will be a major issue in the run-up to the next elections in 2029. On Saturday I addressed the conference of the Connect Trade Union, the union for craftworkers. They were clear with me that in order to end the housing disaster, the Government needs to resource and create viable apprenticeship pipelines and invest in public capacity. When he was making the turnkey announcement this week, it was unfortunate to see the Minister, Deputy Browne, getting a dig in to local authorities. I notice the Taoiseach did it himself a moment ago. The Minister blamed them for not stepping up to the mark on house building. However, if they are not adequately funded and resourced with the necessary staffing capacity, the local authorities will be unable to deliver at the scale needed once the buying of turnkey homes is at an end.
That is your allocated time, Deputy.
We are putting the Taoiseach on notice on this.
Deputy, that is your allocated time finished.
It is a critical issue for all of those who cannot afford to buy or rent their own home.
The Taoiseach, please.
We are resourcing at an unprecedented scale. I mean, 80% of every house built in this country now has State backing, one way or the other. Some €9 billion has been provided in the budget. Of that €9 billion, €3 billion is to deliver 12,000 new social homes in the budget 2027 allocation. The total Exchequer funding available in 2027 for housing is approximately €7.7 billion, comprising approximately €5 billion in capital and €2 billion in current. The investment in the LDA is additional and will complement that. Lending from the Housing Finance Agency will bring the total to approximately €9.1 billion. There are huge resources going into this, and they will continue to go into this. On the other side, the help to buy and first home schemes are doing a lot for first-time buyers. The percentage of first-time buyers drawing down mortgages is increasing on an ongoing basis. We are not scapegoating local authorities, but the reality is that some have done far better than others in terms of housing. That is just the reality.
Yesterday in his defence of the abolition of the triple lock, the Taoiseach asked, "Who is going to engage in military adventurism? Does Deputy McDonald think Dáil Éireann is?". Does he think people have no memory at all? In 2003 I was one of more than 100,000 people marching against the US invasion of Iraq. The Taoiseach was a Minister in a Government that facilitated that illegal and imperialist invasion.
They agreed to allow US troops to use Shannon Airport on their way to this adventure - an adventure that killed hundreds of thousands of people. A top civil servant told the defence committee that if the triple lock had not been in place, the Government could legally have sent Irish troops to participate in that invasion.
The Taoiseach was correct when he said that the triple lock is at the core of our neutrality. Why? Because it is the only thing that legally ensures that the Government can only send troops abroad to peacekeeping missions. That is what this debate is about.
The Taoiseach has misrepresented the position again and again today and yesterday. He presents it as reforming the triple lock. That is what the Taoiseach has an electoral mandate for, "protect and promote Ireland's military neutrality including sensible reform of the 'Triple Lock' legislation.", but can he be honest today and tell us he is not reforming the triple lock and that he is abolishing it? The civil servant at the Department of Defence at the committee said, "You could call it a removal of the triple lock" so stop misleading people. In the Government's legislation, is it not the case that there are only two locks left - the Government and the Dáil - and the Government, by definition, has majority support in the Dáil so it is really no lock at all?
Today again, the Taoiseach spoke about getting rid of the triple lock in order to "keep alive the ... tradition of peacekeeping." That is not true either, is it? The Government's Bill states, "a relevant international force operates for the purpose of peace-keeping, peace-enforcement or conflict prevention". Can the Taoiseach explain to the public what peace enforcement is? It is explicitly not peace-keeping, is it not? Peace enforcement is different because it operates without the consent of the parties involved. The Government's Bill will involve Irish soldiers in illegal wars with no UN mandate in conflicts. It is explicitly the purpose. If it were not the purpose, the Government would not have the word "peace-enforcement" there.
Can the Taoiseach accept as well the fact, agreed to by the Department's officials at the defence committee, that any other regional arrangement includes NATO and any potential coalition of the willing? What this is about is freeing the Government's hand and the hands of future Irish governments to send Irish troops to fight in illegal wars wherever they want. The Government should tell the people where he wants to send our troops. Does the Government want to send them to Ukraine to engage in a war with Russia or does it want to send them to Lebanon as part of the EU's mission to strengthen the Lebanese armed forces to fight against Hezbollah?
Thank you, Deputy.
The Taoiseach asked why should there be a referendum on this.
Deputy, please.
Why? Because people already voted on it.
Your allocated time is up.
They were promised this. It is in the Seville Declaration. On this basis, they voted.
Deputy, are you unable to conform with the direction of the Chair?
If you are going to get rid of it, it needs to be put to the people. It is not the Taoiseach's decision.
The Taoiseach will respond.
The Deputy's presentation, in my view, is completely disingenuous. I note his inability to observe and articulate the fact that what in essence he was saying is that Ireland should depend on the say so and the agreement of Russia, a state that has violated the UN Charter in a most egregious way, killing innocent civilians, behaving like a rogue state.
Talk about Ireland.
In essence, what Deputy Murphy is saying is we cannot participate in any peacekeeping mission from hereon unless a state such as Russia, the United States or China, agrees, particularly Russia because Russia has broken all rules under the UN Charter.
A Deputy
So has America.
In terms of peacekeeping and peace enforcement, there have been peace enforcement missions under the UN. The Deputy knows that, so why did he deliberately create a false narrative there to suggest that this was the Bill?
Because it is not about peacekeeping.
No. The Bill is, in essence, in terms of what already exists in terms of peacekeeping and peace enforcement. We have been on different missions, ever since we started in the 1960s getting involved in peacekeeping. The Deputy knows that very well.
It would be for the Government or the Dáil in terms of deciding what peacekeeping missions we would become involved in. We are not a military power. Let us get rid of all this nonsense.
Ireland is not going to be participating in a war. We do not have the capacity to participate in a war. We are very good at peacekeeping-----
Hear, hear.
-----particularly good at it, and recognised internationally. That is all we want to continue with.
When I have been out in Lebanon, I have talked to our soldiers. I talk to our navy. They feel fulfilment in their military careers, particularly when things were very difficult during the attack on Lebanon by Israel. When I went out there, I said that it must have been particularly tense and difficult. They said, "This is what we are trained for."
People who join our military understand fully the importance of peacekeeping and the impact it has on neighbourhoods and communities that benefit from peacekeeping but if I take the Deputy's direction of travel, the opportunities for peacekeeping will be very limited in the years ahead if we continue with the current system where, essentially, the United States has forced the ending of UNIFIL in Lebanon and Russia, because of its geopolitical issues, will not sanction peace missions in particular parts of the world because it would prefer the Wagner Group to be involved. Russia would prefer its own mercenaries to be involved to extract minerals from many African states. Let us look at what is happening in the Sahel. We need to have an honest conversation about this-----
Like Trump wants one.
-----but the Deputy's defence of Russia and all of this in terms of them being the decision-makers-----
Thank you, Taoiseach. Your time is up. The Deputy will now respond and you can come back in.
-----in terms of where do we get the law in peacekeeping is now erroneous. It has no substantive basis anymore because of the behaviour of Russia-----
Taoiseach, the time allocated is up.
-----in terms of how it is behaving across the world, and others.
This use of Russia and China to justify Ireland preparing to break international law is nothing new. Let me quote from a Dáil debate in 2013:
It appears that Fine Gael is arguing that Ireland is failing in its European responsibilities and is allowing Russia and China to have a veto over our peacekeeping activities. This is nothing more than an out-of-touch ideological obsession on the part of Fine Gael which ignores the facts of Ireland's international standing.
That was a certain Deputy Micheál Martin. The Taoiseach was correct then. The problem is he has adopted the same ideological obsession.
Let us get down to facts and let us be honest. Does the Taoiseach want to send Irish troops to participate in a European mission in Lebanon? Is that what the Taoiseach wants to do? Let us be honest about that because Kaja Kallas is clear. The EU is not seeking to replace UNIFIL. It is not a continuation of UNIFIL. Instead, it is a mission "to strengthen the Lebanese armed forces and the ability of the Lebanese state to provide security." It is a war internal to Lebanon against Hezbollah, and the Taoiseach wants Irish troops to participate in that. All the triple lock does-----
Thank you, Deputy.
-----is say we can only send troops within the framework of international law.
Thank you. Your point is made, Deputy, in the allocated time.
The Taoiseach want to get away from international law. International law says peacekeeping only exists when the UN agrees to it. That is what international law says. That is not just the triple lock. The Taoiseach wants to get rid of it because he-----
Deputy, your time is up. I am going to continuously talk over you until you accept the direction of the Chair.
-----want Irish troops to participate in illegal wars and the Taoiseach had better tell us which wars those are.
We do not want to participate. By the way, there is no one breaking any law here. How dare the Deputy suggest that we want to break international law?
Why else would you get rid of the triple lock?
Deputy, respectfully allow a response.
The triple lock enshrines international law in domestic legislation. That is all it does.
Under the existing peace missions we have been on in Lebanon, Hezbollah have murdered a number of Irish soldiers. The Deputy did not say that. Under the existing peace missions, only very recently, there was the appalling murder of Seán Rooney by Hezbollah, and he was not the first killed by various groupings there. I condemn Hezbollah for what it does and for how it has been undermining Lebanon for so long.
Training other armies, soldiers, etc., is something Ireland has been doing for a long time, and de-mining, for example, or medevac and so on. We want to create options. We are not definitively saying one or the other. We certainly do not want to be involved in wars. That is not our function. It is wrong to suggest that it is.