Citizens' assembly on Irish neutrality a possibility, says Taoiseach

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that Ireland has the longest unbroken record of peacekeeping, but “we do need a discussion on this.”

A citizens' assembly may be held on Irish neutrality, the Taoiseach has told the Dáil.

Micheál Martin said Ireland has “never been politically neutral” and a discussion on military non-alignment could take place after the war in Ukraine has ended.

Responding to People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett during leaders' questions, Mr Martin said Ireland “has a tradition of military non-alignment” but that “we've never been politically neutral.”

“Even in 1939, when the German representative came to the then-Irish government, it was made very clear to the German representative of the closeness and how Britain would always have to get consideration," Mr Martin said.

“And likewise, as we've evolved through our membership of the European Union, we've developed in 1999 a partnership for peace with Nato in order to sustain interoperability if we were on peace missions, peace enforcement missions, with Nato countries."

The Taoiseach told the Dáil: “We’ve been part of (EU defence arrangement) PESCO. We've been part of battle groups, none of which were ever deployed, but which ensured that Irish Defence Forces were at a certain modern competence and capacity to enable them to do what we do best, which is peacekeeping.” 

Mr Martin said that Ireland has the longest unbroken record of peacekeeping, but “we do need a discussion on this.”

"I think we could look at a citizens' assembly to discuss these issues in the fullness of time.” 

Mr Boyd Barrett said that while Ireland needs to be "clear" in condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was "worrying" to see a clamour of "media commentators and senior ministers" looking to argue in favour of Ireland joining Nato.

"If we are opposed to and - we must be opposed to - Putin's brutal and unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine, we should not respond to that by joining an alliance dominated by powers that, for example, are supporting the Saudi dictatorship conducting an equally murderous war in Yemen that has killed more than 300,000 people over the last four years, and the UN is now reporting brought 14m people to the brink of starvation."

The Taoiseach said that such a "clamour" was evidence of democracy in action.