Don’t Remove the Triple Lock – Give Us Our Referendum

This week Taoiseach Micheál Martin announced his intention to push ahead with the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025, aiming to do away with the triple lock. The triple lock is not ideal but it is necessary until the Irish people have been given the opportunity to vote on a constitutional amendment guaranteeing our neutrality.

A referendum is not technically required in order for the Dáil to remove the Triple Lock, but given its history it would be profoundly undemocratic to do so without a direct mandate from the Irish electorate.

What is the Triple Lock?

Ireland’s triple lock is the set of conditions that must be met before more than 12 members of the Defence Forces can be deployed overseas on peacekeeping or peace‑enforcement missions. Three forms of approval are required for this:

• Authorisation by the UN Security Council
• Approval by the Irish Government 
• Resolution for the deployment approved by the Dáil

How did the Triple Lock come into being?

The Republic of Ireland, while historically neutral, does not have, and never had, its neutrality enshrined in the constitution. 

The Triple Lock mechanism is rooted in the Defence Act 1960, which formalised the requirement for UN authorisation and Government approval for overseas missions.

In 1958 Ireland sent troops to a UN observer mission in Lebanon without a Dáil vote, assuming the Government already had the authority. This raised questions about the legal basis for deployments and led to the Defence Act 1960 being enacted less than two years later. This legislation made approval by both the Cabinet and the Dáil necessary for any deployment of troops.

In June 2001 Irish people voted on the Treaty of Nice, an EU Treaty. It was rejected. In the wake of the first Nice Treaty referendum failing, the government of the day determined that concerns about EU military integration played a large part in its rejection and so they assured voters that Ireland’s participation in any future EU missions would require Government, Dáil, and UN approval. A second referendum was held on Nice and passed with a sizeable majority.

The other No vote – and the assurances we were given then…

In 2008 Ireland had its first vote on the Treaty of Lisbon. The Treaty of Lisbon was another EU treaty – and basically a reformulation of the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, but that’s a different story. The Lisbon Treaty was rejected by Irish voters, and again one of the major causes of this rejection was believed to be concerns about losing our military neutrality. These concerns were valid as Articles 42 and 46 of the Lisbon Treaty enabled the creation of PESCO. The government of the day duly obtained a legally binding agreement from the EU that these Articles would not apply to Ireland, unless we decided they should. And the second vote on the Lisbon Treaty, in 2009, passed with a comfortable majority.

What is PESCO?

Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) formalizes co-operation on security and defence matters at the EU level. The defence initiatives under PESCO currently work by national armies cooperating on joint projects such as developing new technology for cyber defence or maritime drones, or joint training missions. The EU is also working towards having Rapid Deployment Capacity, which would allow 5000 troops to be sent quickly where needed. Plans are also underway for an EU-wide military mobility area which would make it easier to move troops and equipment across borders during a crisis. 

Some people believe PESCO will inevitably lead to the creation of an EU army. Some politicians have already called for this. Emmanuel Macron has actually called for a European army a few times, first in November 2018, then again in 2024 and 2025.

There certainly is a case for PESCO. I’m not automatically opposed to the initiative, at all. But I do think Ireland should remain neutral and co-operate with PESCO outside of the formal arrangements.

At this point, if you’re not well acquainted with the ins and outs of Irish neutrality or how Ireland works really, you might be thinking that I’m foolish to be concerned about PESCO since we got that legally binding exemption.

We did, yeah. And then the Dáil voted that we join PESCO in 2017, which we duly did in 2018.

What happened?

In a sense, with the vote on Lisbon, we effectively had a referendum on getting rid of our neutrality back in 2008 and rejected it. But then didn’t our TDs go ahead and ignore that by voting for us to join PESCO 10 years later without any direct mandate from the Irish people? Yes, that’s pretty much the long and the short of it.

Now, in case you’re thinking that PESCO came into existence with the Lisbon Treaty and that Ireland voted to join after 8 years of seeing it work so well … No. Articles 42 and 46 weren’t acted on by the EU until 2017. That was what triggered the vote in the Irish parliament. And, with very little debate, it was passed.

But what has neutrality ever done for Ireland?

Neutrality has helped positively shape and develop Ireland’s economic and diplomatic role in the world in a surprising number of ways.

Ireland’s neutrality didn’t just shape foreign policy, it shaped the entire economic model of the State, especially from the 1940s to the 1990s. Neutrality gave Ireland room to manoeuvre in a world divided by military blocs, and that freedom allowed the country build an economy based on openness, global trade, and being useful to everyone and aligned with no one.

1. Neutrality made the business innovations at Shannon possible.

Innovations like:

• world’s first duty‑free shop (1947)
• first modern free‑trade zone (1959)
• becoming a hub for transatlantic flights from every political bloc
• being a base for early foreign direct investment into Ireland

Ireland was outside of NATO and that meant it could do business with countries from the USSR as well as from the US and Europe. If Ireland had been in NATO, Soviet carriers like Aeroflot would almost certainly have avoided Shannon, and the Free Zone would have lost its unique selling point as a neutral crossroads. Neutrality gave Ireland a commercial identity as a place where everyone could do business.

I actually didn’t know how important Shannon Airport was until I watched this video earlier this week.

2. Neutrality supported Ireland’s “open door” economic strategy

From the 1950s onward, Ireland deliberately shifted from protectionism to openness. Neutrality helped because it:

• signalled that Ireland was politically stable and predictable
• avoided entanglement in Cold War military tensions
• made Ireland attractive to multinational companies seeking a European base
• allowed Ireland to build a reputation as a trusted, independent actor

This reputation mattered enormously when Ireland began courting US investment in the 1960s and 70s.

3. Neutrality strengthened Ireland’s diplomatic brand

Ireland’s foreign policy identity became tied to:

• peacekeeping
• mediation
• humanitarianism
• independence from great‑power blocs

This “soft power” made Ireland a credible host for international organisations, negotiations, and global companies.

It also meant Ireland could join the EEC (now EU) in 1973 without being seen as a military satellite of any bloc.

But how can Ireland remain neutral within the EU?

A country can be part of the EU without being part of PESCO. Denmark only joined in 2023. And Malta is still outside of PESCO.

And to be clear, when I say Ireland needs to remain neutral I mean, as part of this, that we need to leave PESCO. As I already said, I would like Ireland to still co-operate with EU on security and defence matters, but we should do so outside of the formal PESCO arrangements. Why? Let me run a scenario past you…

Awful to imagine, but we must

I want you to imagine a conflict where the UK joins with the US but the EU takes an opposing position. Worse still, the EU takes the morally reprehensible position. Hopefully, this will never happen, but it is foolish not to run through the different possibilities. Now, what will the UK do in such a scenario? It will annex Ireland for its own security. Or at the very least, functionally disable it. And before you argue that the EU wouldn’t allow that to happen, realise that in such a scenario Ireland would still be pummelled by both the UK – and the EU forces who would be protecting positions here. 

Why is it necessary to imagine that the EU takes the morally reprehensible position in this scenario? It’s just to add an echoing ripple to it. Because we’d be in a fight for our independence, but fighting the “good guys” side in a world war. That wasn’t the situation during WWII – but Ireland stayed neutral then because we weren’t going to fight on the side of England, partly for fear that they would reoccupy us.

What do we have to lose by letting go of our neutrality?

Potentially a lot. Ireland’s independent “soft power” gives it a unique voice on the world stage. We are a small country. We’ve found strength and success in opening our economy, and opening our hearts – especially to all people who have struggled against injustice – which is actually pretty much everyone. I know that may sound like I’m plamáis-ing it there. But I mean it. That’s how we see ourselves. Isn’t it? That’s who we are. That’s who we want to be. Right?

If we are part of a larger military bloc, we lose that voice. We’re a small part of something much larger, that we don’t have much control over. At the moment, PESCO works by unanimity of the contracting member states. The EU Commission has already expressed a wish to change this to a model of Qualified Majority Voting. And it may be able to do so without creating a new treaty, meaning Ireland may not get a referendum on this. So Ireland will lose her voice – because her politicians avoided putting the question of Irish military neutrality directly to the people.

Even as part of PESCO though, the triple lock does, to an extent, safeguard our neutrality.

What does the EU gain by Ireland remaining neutral?

Geographically speaking, Ireland isn’t strategically important. If we remain neutral this continues to be the case. But as part of an EU military bloc, Ireland could become a weak or difficult point of defence that could be used to distract from a fight on the other side of Europe. Is this true for most countries in Europe? No, Ireland is in a different position.

Why did Rome not invade Ireland? We’re more trouble than we’re worth. Just ask England. 

Don’t remove the triple lock – not without guaranteeing our neutrality first

Everyone is better off with Ireland being neutral. And we deserve to have our say on this. Give us our referendum, Taoiseach. Because without the people’s consent, removing the triple lock isn’t defence reform, it’s a democratic failure.