Sir, - Diarmuid Rossa Phelan (June 14th) raises some important and timely questions about the meaning of Irish neutrality in the context of the recent European security decisions taken at the EU summit in Cologne.
He writes: "The line peddled presently [by the Irish Government] is that `traditional' neutrality is unaffected ([by the Cologne decisions] because there is no mutual defence pact. To whom does neutrality mean merely the absence of a mutual defence pact?" MRBI/Irish Times opinion polls taken in 1985 and 1992 strongly suggest that this is exactly what neutrality means to the plurality of Irish people. Asked "What does neutrality mean to you?", an average of 30 per cent replied: "no involvement in wars/no nuclear weapons here/not involved in World War II". An average of 17 per cent replied: "no military alliances/not in Nato".
Since NATO is the main nuclear-armed organisation relevant to Irish foreign and defence policy, these two response categories are quite similar, indicating that the Irish public does indeed think neutrality means an absence of a mutual defence pact. That is, in so far as neutrality means anything at all: on average in the two opinion polls 26 per cent of respondents indicate that they simply "don't know". No wonder the Irish Government can get away with murder. - Yours, etc., Karin Gilland,
Department of Political Science, Trinity College, Dublin 2.