Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan has claimed that the government intends to bring forward legislation to scrap the triple lock next week.
Boylan called the move “reckless” and said it “leaves us exposed to the militarisation agenda being pushed by Ursula von der Leyen and her commission.”
Boylan, the Sinn Féin MEP for Dublin, is Ireland’s only MEP on the security committee, and says that the current trend towards militarisation across the EU makes this an “incredibly dangerous move.”
“There’s an almost intoxicating obsession with militarisation in the EU at the moment,” Boylan said.
Boylan claimed, “to scrap the triple lock would remove the fireguard that we have against the pressure to get rid of our neutrality altogether.”
The Dublin MEP said, “it would essentially leave decisions around the deployment of Irish troops up solely to the whims of our government, and we have already seen that they cannot be trusted to stand up to pressure from the EU and the US on issues of foreign affairs.”
Boylan said that polling constantly shows that Irish people value Ireland’s neutrality, and want to see it protected, insisting that the triple lock was a “key” part of this.
“We saw the government come under pressure from their own TDs earlier this year around their plans to scrap the triple lock,” she said.
“I would again urge all TDs in the Dáil to make it clear to the government that this is a dangerous path, and one that they should not follow through on.”