Mary Fitzpatrick

So we went to the electorate and asked for a mandate to protect our neutrality and to reform the triple lock.

Reform the triple lock does not mean abolish the triple lock.

The triple lock is threefold.

It's government approval, Dáil approval and UN Security Council approval.

What the government is proposing, what Fianna Fáil is proposing is to reform it by having a double lock, by having a government approval and a Dáil approval.

Well, actually, can I explain why?

Because I think this is important.

Because one mischievous, I think, and erroneous proposition has been put forward by opposition that the motivation is to join some military European war to actually...

have our troops go and engage in, I think it's been described as foreign imperialist wars by the leader of the opposition.

But what we're actually doing is recognising the reality of the changed world circumstances.

Since 2015, the UN Security Council has not...

approved one major peacekeeping initiative.

So up until then, and particularly in the 90s, there was about 30, 35 major UN peacekeeping initiatives.

We need the triple lock when we want to send our troops abroad to do peacekeeping.

Without UN sanction, we can't do that under the triple lock.

We're saying we're an independent, sovereign republic.

We're capable of making our own decisions without having Putin or anybody else give us permission.

And so we're saying,

We're taking back our power here.

We recognise the changed circumstances.