IRELAND’S HISTORICAL role with the UN peacekeeping force may be about to change, as new legislation seeks to end the requirement for backing from the Security Council.
The proposal will be brought to Cabinet tomorrow by Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence, Simon Harris. The change would remove the need for UN Security Council authorisation on Irish participation in peacekeeping missions.
Mr. Harris said that the Government was ‘determined to move on this issue’, telling reporters that Ireland’s ‘proud peacekeeping tradition’ was being hampered to the point of ‘paralysis at [the] UN’.
He explained the rationale behind the decision was to reinstate any future decision-making on peacekeeping missions to the Dáil, emphasising that the UN charter would still guide key considerations.
He also explained that the current arrangement – whereby the five permanent members of the UN Security Council have a veto – was not fit for purpose. Mr. Harris said that since no peacekeeping mission has effectively been authorised by the Security Council since 2014, such a veto ‘needs to be modified’.
He said that the new arrangement could include regional cooperation with other EU member states, and exclude former UN Security Council members like Russia from having a say in critical affairs pertaining to international defence.
The Tánaiste pointed out that under the current setup, any peacekeeping deployment to Ukraine would effectively have to be sanctioned by Russia; something he described as ‘a rather bizarre situation’.
He stressed that the changes would have no bearing on Ireland’s neutrality, though members of the Opposition have voiced their concern. Social Democrat TD Sinéad Gibney called the legislation a “retrograde step… which will change the triple lock to a single lock”.
“A UN mandate gives legitimacy to peacekeeping missions which will be impossible to replace from elsewhere,” Ms. Gibney said.
“This change opens the door to Irish troops being seconded to NATO missions and indeed EU missions, with almost free-range given to the government of the day about the nature and purpose of those missions”.
Under current rules, 12 members of the Irish Defence Forces are allowed to be sent overseas without triggering the so-called Triple Lock. New Government legislation aims to increase this number from 12 to 50, adding that Ireland must be in an ‘agile’ position to be able to get Irish citizens out of danger, citing recent examples of crises in Afghanistan and Sudan.
See More: Irish Neutrality, Peacekeeping, UN
