It is expected that the Cabinet will today approve legislation to end the Triple Lock.
People Before Profit said the Government plans to end the triple lock so it can involve Ireland in EU militarisation and in NATO. Also says it will seek to escalate opposition to Government plans and called for a referendum to allow the people to decide on the triple lock.
People Before Profit Deputy Paul Murphy said:
“Legislation to end the triple lock is expected to be approved by the Cabinet today. If the government is successful in ending the triple lock, it will be the final blow to neutrality that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been planning for a long time.
“As a small geographically isolated country, with no colonial past and no history of military aggression, neutrality is our best defence. The real reason the Government wants to end Irish neutrality is that they see Ireland's primary role in the world as a platform for US foreign direct investment.
“Being active in the UN General Assembly as an ally of other post-colonial countries is of no interest to Micheál Martin or Simon Harris. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil now regard Ireland as part of the Western powers. They want to get in on the imperialist act, intervening in weaker countries and profiting from the military-industrial complex, just like the rest of the EU and NATO states.
“The Government must stop lying to people about what they are doing and why they are doing it. Let the people decide, through a referendum, on the future of our neutrality and the triple lock.”
Richard Boyd Barrett said:
“The Government is in a headlong rush to dismantle our neutrality and align us ever more closely to the project of European militarisation and to NATO.
“The inconvenient fact for the Government is that they have no mandate to end the triple lock. On the contrary, Catherine Connolly made opposition to militarisation and defence of the triple lock central to her presidential election campaign, an election she won emphatically.
“But the Government simply treats the public with contempt. Just two months after Catherine Connolly’s win, Minister Helen McEntee announced that military spending is to be increased to €1.7 billion by 2030, a 55% increase on previous military spending plans.
“Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are dancing to the tune of the US and the big military powers in the EU and NATO who are pressing for ever greater militarisation in Europe. And now the Government is launching its definitive assault on the triple lock and our neutrality.
“We are just three weeks from the start of Ireland’s EU Presidency, something that the Government is cynically using to advance its militarisation agenda. We will respond by mobilising resistance to that.
“To this end, I have written to all the left political parties, to Palestine Solidarity groups, and to anti war and peace groups to invite them to a meeting on Thursday to discuss organising protests during the EU Presidency, to oppose the attacks on our neutrality, the EU’s escalating drive to militarisation, and ongoing EU complicity with Israel’s genocidal crimes against Palestine.”