Sean O'Riordan: Neutral or Nato? It's time to give the public a say

Are our military policy shifts in foreign countries part of moves which could effectively kill off our neutrality? Defence Correspondent Sean O’Riordan examines Ireland’s growing closeness to Nato

The George Bernard Shaw amongst others docked at the naval base in Haulbowline on Saturday, April 1st. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

In the context of the ongoing personnel and logistical difficulties currently challenging the Irish Defence Forces, there are two questions that beg to be asked.

Firstly, when examining the crisis facing our navy, when staffing numbers are so low, we can’t put ships to sea to protect our own waters, why should we then send a ship to Libya?

Secondly, we need to ask why we are withdrawing troops from a UN peace-keeping mission on the Golan Heights to provide personnel to an EU Battlegroup which contains Nato members.

These moves give rise to further questions, questions that I believe the public should have a right to join in and debate.

The world is in as dangerous a place as it has been since the Second World War and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

In Ireland, we have already aligned ourselves politically with the Ukrainians since the Russian invasion of their country.

That’s probably acceptable to most right-thinking people here as in our psyche we know what it’s like to be invaded without provocation by a stronger power.

We had 800 years of occupation but that’s now water under the bridge.

The recent revelations that we didn’t have enough personnel to crew our navy ships to go out and protect our own waters came as a major embarrassment.

More than €280m worth of ships were tied up at the navy base in Haulbowline, Cork Harbour, as Russian spy ships sat provocatively over submarine Transatlantic cables off our coast. Those cables, essential for global communication transmit millions of messages — many of them massive financial transactions — between North America and Europe on a daily basis.

In the event of war, the Russians would no doubt cut them and cripple trade between the two continents —that’s a given.

Additionally, we couldn’t put ships out to seize large foreign trawlers (and some smaller Irish ones) having a field day hoovering up depleted fish stock in our own Economic Exclusion Zones (EEZs).

That’s a million square kilometres of ocean, which incidentally, covers 15% of all EU-protected seas.

The consequences of patrol ships being tied up because of a lack of crews will result in a further ‘swamping’ of the country with cocaine from maritime-borne drugs shipments, as well as our indigenous fishing industry being destroyed by massive illegal catches — for foreign trawlers, illegal fishing is now a major “easy kill”.

Libya

In the midst of this, we have decided to send one of our precious ships off to the Libyan coast, leaving our backdoor virtually wide open to what one high level source referred to as “the two Ks” —the Kremlin and the Kinahans.

Members of the Emergency services form a guard of honour for Irish Naval Ship LE William Butler Yeats after it departed from Ohn Rogersons Quay, Dublin and return to routine security operations at sea. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

We’re sending LÉ William Butler Yeats to patrol the coastline off Libya in an attempt to prevent arms smuggling into the warn-torn country and to stop petroleum products leaving, products that finance the purchase of arms and equipment.

The ship will be out of Irish waters for approximately 48 days. It will take a week sailing to Libya and another week to return. The navy is committed to a further 34 days of patrolling the waters off the North African country’s coast.

At a minimum it will require 45 personnel to crew the vessel. This will again put the navy to the pin of its collar to provide home defence.

The navy continues to lose personnel at an alarming rate; the Irish Examiner understands that just 14 recruits are currently undergoing training.

Those numbers don’t even come near what’s required to balance ongoing personnel leakage.

Interestingly, when the announcement was made, the Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Seán Clancy said: “This deployment is crucial to the regeneration of Ireland’s Navy and is directly linked our efforts to recruit, retain and incentivise seagoing.”

All very well intentioned, no doubt, but this time there is no clause in the operation to save migrants from drowning on their way from North Africa to southern Europe.

Migrant crisis

The Irish navy performed admirably when tasked to rescue hapless migrants between 2015 and 2017, saving more than 18,000 people who almost certainly would have perished in overcrowded dinghies used by people smugglers who deliberately, in many cases, didn’t supply them with enough water, food, or fuel to make the passage.

The navy won huge acclaim during the migrant rescues. There was hardly a day went by where, in my capacity as this newspaper’s Defence Correspondent, I wasn’t hearing yet another story of the professionalism of our crews in such operations, and the dignity they showed when recovering drowning victims from the water.

It’s well documented that the publicity engendered a serious interest from young people thinking about joining the force and for the first time in years there was a flurry of recruits.

There’s no doubt the extra few euro will be a godsend to the lads and lassies who serve on the Libya mission, but if anybody seriously thinks that mission is going to grab the headlines and encourage the young to join up ... quite frankly, I don’t think so.

Apart from arresting a Bond-villain type trying to smuggle nuclear weapon components into Libya, I don’t see how it will generate positive publicity.

Irish Naval Ship LE William Butler Yeats passes Poolbeg lighthouse in  Dublin and returns to routine security operations at sea. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

This mission, unlike the previous ones, is not about saving lives. Navy personnel won’t knock it and who’d blame them as, they’re so poorly paid, the extra allowances from the mission might keep a roof over their heads and provide families with a few treats.

The reality is that the Italians, with some justification, felt they were being overwhelmed (so too Malta to a lesser extent) by the migrant crisis and that the rest of Europe was doing very little to help them out.

Other EU countries also wanted to stem the flow of Sub-Saharan migrants, especially the Italians who’ve recently acquired a more right-wing parliament.

I’m not suggesting Ireland was one of those countries, and there is no evidence to the contrary but instead of saving migrants from drowning, the crew on LÉ William Butler Yeats will be tasked with ‘information-gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations’ on Operation Irini.

Army

Let’s turn to our army. Depleted as well, it has been tasked over the years to do what has now become impossible.

With the personnel the army has left, it cannot continue to fulfill the UN peacekeeping roles it has held most admirably since the Congo in 1961.

Raco (Representative Organisation of Commissioned Officers) stated at its conference last November that the number of overseas missions the Defence Forces engage in was simply unsustainable given the ongoing loss of personnel.

Such was the shortage of volunteer officers for such missions, they were being ordered to fill roles, even if they had recently come back from overseas duties and had young families.

This country has one of the longest and most distinguished service of any nation in carrying out peacekeeping duties and we should be very proud of that.

Some military families can boast three generations who have carried out such a role, and to date 88 soldiers have paid with their lives.

The penny appeared to drop in government circles that at least one mission had to be axed and the sword fell on the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) on the Golan Heights, on the Israeli-Syrian border.

We began that mission in 2013 and since then around 130 infantry have been deployed there on a six-month basis rotation keeping belligerent factions apart along a 75km front.

A UN helicopter takes off during Micheal Martin's visit to Camp Shamrock to pass on his condolences to troops after the death of Sean Rooney. Picture: Neil Michael

Our government has told the UN it’s disengaging from the mission. However, a new contingent was sent out there just a couple of weeks ago and will therefore be there until October.

After that, it is a bit of a grey area. Nobody knows yet if another contingent will be sent after that, but 2024 is the cut-off year for Irish involvement there.

Minister for Defence Micheál Martin said the withdrawal of troops from the Golan mission will relieve ongoing challenges in filling certain specialist roles in overseas deployments.

He added that, as a result of this withdrawal, the Defence Forces might be able to provide “a modest increase” to its peacekeeping commitment with the UN in Lebanon. It would be almost unthinkable that we will leave Lebanon anytime soon. Ireland is the longest provider of a peacekeeping force in UN history in that country.

But we’re withdrawing a peacekeeping force from Golan Heights to join an EU Battlegroup. This is not the first time our troops have been committed to such a force, but it’s fair to say the military and political landscape has drastically changed in the past year because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

We have been involved in the EU-led Nordic Battlegroups of 2008, 2011 and 2015, the British-led Battlegroup in 2016 and the German-led Battlegroups in 2012, 2016 and in 2020. The Germans will spearhead it again next year.

If you are out with your mates for a night on the town and a gang of bullies starts a fight with them, would you back up your friends?

You wouldn’t be much of a friend if you didn’t. And they might not be very enamoured of you, if you used the excuse that you didn’t come to their aid because you wanted to remain neutral.

Being neutral means nothing to despots. Just ask the Belgians. Hitler’s forces invaded them on May 10, 1940, under the codename Fall Gelb (‘Case Yellow’) to further the occupation of France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

There are other factors which complicate our supposed ‘neutral stance’ when we join these EU Battlegroups. For example, we had troops in previous battlegroups working alongside the British and Norwegians — members of Nato, which Russia views as its mortal enemy.

We’ve also worked with the Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Finland. All these Baltic States are now petrified that Putin will turn on them after his invasion of Ukraine; he perceives them as antagonists.

Add to the mix Finland’s joining of Nato on April 4 and we can surely see a shift in our neutrality, although our senior politicians will claim otherwise.

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One of Camp Shamrock's kittens. Picture: Neil Michael.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said, while this country remains militarily neutral in the Ukraine/Russia war, it’s clear we are not politically neutral.

I accept this to an extent, especially as the Russians are the aggressors. However, former minister for defence Simon Coveney has said on several occasions that our neutrality cannot be changed without a referendum which would undo the ‘Triple Lock’ which defines our neutrality.

Our country’s forces cannot be deployed overseas without the approval of three bodies — the UN, the government, and Dáil TDs. That’s the Triple Lock.

It appears the defence of our own shores doesn’t come into this. A secret deal was struck a few years ago between the Irish and British governments which gave permission to the British to fly into our airspace and shoot down hostile planes, be they controlled by another State or terrorists.

The British realised that we didn’t have the air power to shoot down jets and naturally didn’t want a transatlantic airliner hijacked by terrorists slamming into Buckingham Palace or the House of Commons.

The Irish Examiner revealed the story of the secret deal and it’s not once been denied by the Irish Department of Defence. Nor does it appear the Dáil was consulted.

In fact the Defence Forces weren’t either. The RAF wanted the Defence Forces in on the talks, but the government decided to exclude them. Why was that?

So, if the government doesn’t consult our own military on such issues, you’d have to ask have there been any more secret deals we don’t know about?

What we do know is that the French and British are keeping a close eye on the subsea transmission cables off our coast as they know, our navy is so depleted, we don’t have the capabilities to monitor them in the manner we should.

Anyone with ‘their glasses on’ can’t fail to notice the notable increase in the amount of EU Fisheries Protection Vessels coming to our coast and now regularly docking at Cork City’s Horgan’s Quay.

It’s just another recognition that our navy is so run down, we don’t have the capabilities to conduct the required fishery patrols.

All European military analysists agree Ireland is the continent’s weakest link.

We can’t patrol our own waters adequately, yet we can send a ship to Libya?

Given the current uncertain geopolitical situation it might be high time the public gets a chance to say what it thinks about our neutrality, in the form of a referendum.