Purpose of forum was to prepare ground for ditching the Triple Lock and to weaken public opposition to increased militarism and the government’s ongoing erosion of neutrality, with a view to its eventual abandonment
INL rejects report’s findings as, at best, invalid and, at worst, fraudulent
The Irish Neutrality League has challenged the validity of Dame Louise Richardson’s report on the Consultative Forum on International Security Policy. It has been reported that Ms Richardson acknowledges that the opinions expressed at the forum are not indicative of the views of the public. Yet this is contradicted by Ms Richardson’s assertion that the “prevailing view” is that the Triple Lock mechanism should be reconsidered. The INL charges that the forum was not fit to establish the prevailing view on the issues within its remit, and challenges Ms Richardson to substantiate her claim concerning the “prevailing view”.
The INL notes that Ms Richardson has been obliged to acknowledge that there is no “popular mandate to drop the current policy of neutrality”. Yet this, too, is contradicted by the unsubstantiated assertion that maintaining the existing model of neutrality will “pose a challenge” for Irish governments.
The INL also rejects Ms Richardson’s reported characterisation of neutrality as “the current policy”. According to the INL, Ms Richardson fails to acknowledge that neutrality is, and has long been, an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist principle deeply cherished by the majority of people in Ireland. To characterise it as “the current policy”, says the INL, is to knowingly prepare the ground for its eventual abandonment, in defiance of the public’s preference.
The INL rejected the forum as undemocratic at its announcement and charged that the invited speakers were for the most part academics and military personnel overwhelmingly in favour of increased Irish participation in European defence arrangements and in NATO. Following the report’s publication, though without sight of it, the INL asserts that many of its reported findings in the media appear to reflect the forum’s narrow range of contributors and the forum’s consequent democratic deficit.
The INL asserts that its campaign to defend neutrality is validated by expressed public opinion, while the government’s forum on defence was a flawed and undemocratic exercise that failed to seek the views of the public at large because the overwhelming view that neutrality must be upheld was an unwanted view. The purpose of the forum, according to the INL, was to prepare the ground for the ditching of the Triple Lock, and to weaken public opposition to increased militarism and the government’s ongoing erosion of neutrality, with a view to its eventual abandonment. The INL therefore rejects the forum report’s findings as, at best, invalid and, at worst, fraudulent.