Ireland yesterday began a public debate on international security policy, including its long-standing military neutrality, which sits increasingly at odds with European allies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The consultation, which ends on Tuesday next week, follows the decision by previously non-aligned Finland and Sweden to reappraise decades of neutrality in the face of Kremlin aggression.
Debate over Ireland pursuing NATO membership has stoked passions and threatened to divert the course followed by successive governments since the outbreak of World War II.
Photo: Reuters
Last week, Irish President Michael Higgins, whose role in Irish politics is largely ceremonial, said the government was “playing with fire” by raising the issue.
Ireland is at a “most dangerous moment” in foreign policy, Higgins said in an interview with Irish newspaper the Business Post, adding that its present position is “one of drift.”
Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has talked down the forum’s effect on the neutrality discussion, and on Tuesday told the lower house of Irish parliament that the consultation had “no hidden agenda” and would deal with a wide range of defense issues.
“We’re very clear about what our policy is. We’re not going to be joining NATO or any other military alliance. We are going to be investing in our defense forces,” he told the Dail Eireann.
The public consultation begins in Ireland’s southern city of Cork and is to progress to Galway on the west coast on Friday, before concluding in Dublin on Monday and Tuesday next week.
A poll conducted this month by the Irish Times found that the country’s policy of neutrality remains popular and is backed by 61 percent of voters.
However, 55 percent of respondents supported “significantly increasing” military capacity.
The neutrality policy was developed in the aftermath of Ireland’s bloody struggle for independence from Britain, an ensuing civil war and the creation of the Irish Republic in 1937.
The state’s founding constitution did not codify its neutral stance.
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