DAIL approval would be sought next month to enable this State to join the Partnership for Peace, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O'Donnell, told the House. Ireland would join PfP by signing the PfP document.
"It is the intention simultaneously to hand over to the NATO Secretary-General our national presentation document. Ireland would also be entitled to participate in the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, which provides the overarching framework for political and security-related consultations among PfP members," she said.
"Our intention is to appoint representatives to the NATO headquarters. As the other neutral states participating in PfP have done, it is our intention to accredit the Ambassador to Belgium, who also acts as Permanent Representative to the WEU, to NATO," she said.
As had been made clear in the House on previous occasions, a referendum on this matter was not required as PfP would not be in conflict with our neutrality, added the Minister. Participation in the partnership would be in full accordance with our policy of military neutrality; it did not entail membership of NATO or any alliance commitments.
Neither did it change the situation under which Irish participation in crisis-management missions, whether peacekeeping, as in Lebanon, or peace-enforcement, as in the Balkans or East Timor, required a UN mandate. PfP would in fact enhance the capabilities of the Defence Forces to meet the challenges of UN-mandated peacekeeping in the next century, the Minister said.
The Fine Gael spokesman on Foreign Affairs, Mr Gay Mitchell, asked if the Minister was confirming that the commitment of the Taoiseach to a referendum on the issue had been abandoned. How could she square what she had told the House with the earlier statement by the Taoiseach that we would not be appointing an ambassador to NATO?
This backdoor approach to joining the PfP was bringing the whole process into disrepute, suggested Mr Mitchell.
Ms O'Donnell replied that the Government's position was that there was no need for a referendum on this issue. That was the advice of the Attorney General. Participation in Partnership for Peace had no implications for our sovereignty and would have no implications for our neutrality.
Mr Joe Higgins (Socialist Party, Dublin West) asked if the Minister would not agree that despite the Government's efforts to portray it as some sort of humanitarian process, it really was a military alliance, and that the Government was bringing this State into a "militarisation situation" with some of the biggest military powers in the world.
Did she agree that PfP would be tied into the armaments industry and give a further twist to the production of arms, which was carried out by some of the biggest conglomerates in the world? The people were being denied a say on what was an extremely serious step, he said.
Mr Proinsias De Rossa (Labour, Dublin North West) stressed the need to consult the people on this issue. The Government's approach was unsustainable politically, given the revolt that was emerging on the Fianna Fail backbenches.
Mr John Gormley (Green Party, Dublin South East ) said many people would want to know why things were proceeding with such unseemly haste. Were we being put under pressure by the United States on this matter, he wondered.
The Ministerial statements made to be House showed that the claim that PfP had nothing to do with NATO was "a load of bunkum".
