The Opposition has tried to undermine the truth of the Defence Amendment Bill, writes Willie O'Dea
The Greek dramatist Aeschylus observed: "In war, truth is the first casualty." While the attempted furore over the Defence Amendment Bill has hardly amounted to war, there have been several grubby bids to undermine the truth of what the Bill contains.
One such was last Tuesday's Irish Times article by the Green Party's, John Gormley. In it, he sought to again draw a haze of misinformation and half-baked conjecture over what the content and purpose of the Defence Amendment Bill. A bit like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland, Gormley believes that "words mean what he chooses them to mean".
This deliberate misconstruction is a much-favoured Green tactic and Deputy Gormley was well at it by the second paragraph with the assertion: "You will hear very little discussion about this legislation . . . in the media . . ."
This is plainly wrong. Since I first outlined the contents of the Bill on February 9th, I have spoken, written and debated its contents countless times with members of the Green Party and others. This includes articles from Gormley and I in this newspaper and public debate at both the Institute of European Affairs conference in April and the Forum on Europe in May. All these are in addition to the Dáil exchanges and countless parliamentary questions over the past year.
Not content with this "economy with the actualité", as Sir Robert Armstrong once described it, Gormley then persists with the other old chestnut, the allegation that we are dismantling Ireland's neutrality saying: ". . . another core element of Irish neutrality, the triple lock, will be so diluted as to make it meaningless". He fails to mention that he and his colleagues have been confidently, almost gleefully, predicting an end to Ireland's neutrality since 1992. Had even a fraction of those forecasts been right we would now have no neutrality left to "dilute", there would have been forced conscription into a European army and we would now be a member of a nuclear alliance.
Despite all their posturing and pontificating the Greens have voted in favour of sending Irish troops abroad on every occasion. No doubt they will continue this voting record into the future, including where the troops are being deployed as part of an EU Battlegroup/Rapid Response Force.
The reason is that the triple lock ensures that sending troops abroad on peace support missions can only happen where there is a specific UN resolution.
This was the case before the Defence Amendment Bill and it remains the case after the Bill has been passed.
So what was the hyperbole of the past few days all about? Increasingly, it seems it wasn't so much about the content of the legislation as it was about mistrust and one-upmanship among the Opposition.
One of the curious outcomes of Tuesday night's debate was seeing the three elements of the putative alternative Government standing on three sides of a two-sided debate. Fine Gael swallowed hard on its opposition to the triplelock and voted for the Bill, the Greens trenchantly opposed it, while Pat Rabbitte's principled and brave Labour Party said they kind of supported it, but then abstained.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland on Tuesday, Fine Gael's defence spokesman described debating this issue with the Greens as "surreal". This is hardly a good omen for parties who aspire to negotiate a programme for government someday.
Surreal was, however, a good word to describe the sheer vacuity of some of the Opposition amendments offered. Not least, the one from Sinn Féin whose net effect would be to require a United Nations Security Council resolution for the Army equestrian team to attend show-jumping competitions, such as the one in Aachen.
The Greens, more moderately, suggested that a formal Cabinet decision would suffice.
In passing the Defence Amendment Bill so decisively by 98 votes to 12 we have ensured that Ireland participates and contributes fully, in line with its significant capability, to international peace and security. There is a real job that needs to be done by troops who can work closely with other forces and deploy rapidly in support of UN peacekeeping and humanitarian operations.
The Irish people expect no less. And our Defence Forces deserve no less. After Rwanda, after Srebrenica and after Darfur, the cry of "never again" rang out across the globe, just as it had after the second World War. Yet it did happen again. Saying "never again" is not sufficient. We must take the steps necessary to see that we can act quickly.
We have an obligation to do all we can to ensure there are no more Rwandas and Srebrenicas. Not to participate would be turning our backs on our obligation. The choice is that stark.
• Willie O'Dea is Minister for Defence