WILL Catherine Connolly prevent Ireland from going to war? That was the unspoken question at this week’s inauguration of Ireland’s tenth president.
The Dublin government favours involvement in an EU military alliance, but prior to her election, the new president had strongly condemned the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy.
While previous presidents have not always agreed with government policy, President Connolly tends to be more outspoken.
She described Ireland’s engagement with NATO under its Partnership for Peace programme as “a travesty of the English language, because it is a partnership for war”.
Meanwhile, Taoiseach Micheál Martin is planning to abolish Ireland’s Triple Lock. It states that no more than 12 Irish soldiers can be sent into battle zones without permission from the government, the Dáil and the United Nations.
The taoiseach plans to drop the requirement for UN approval, which is seen by many, including the new president, as a first step in abandoning military neutrality. Indeed, in 2013, Martin himself described it as “the core of Irish neutrality”.
Welcome to a return to 1914, when Ireland wondered whether to go and fight in Europe, or stay at home and fight for Ireland.
It is probably too fanciful to depict Micheál Martin as John Redmond and Catherine Connolly as her namesake James, but looking at the current situation in that light gives a rough idea of the contrasting opinions between president and taoiseach.
One Dublin source with an insight into the taoiseach’s thinking has told this column that “Micheál Martin’s final foreign policy ambition as taoiseach is to abolish the Triple Lock”.
This explains why he went out on a limb to secure Jim Gavin’s nomination as Fianna Fáil’s presidential candidate. Gavin supported abandoning the Triple Lock as soon as he was nominated.
It also explains why the taoiseach rejected Bertie Ahern as a candidate. Bertie supports the retention of the Triple Lock.
Every TD in the Dáil has been told of his position, but the Dublin media has yet to mention it.
Ahern’s reason is simple. In 2001, the Irish electorate rejected the EU’s Nice Treaty in a referendum because, among other reasons, it was seen as threatening Irish neutrality. So Bertie gave a commitment to keep the Triple Lock without any time limit on how long it would last.
His promise was enshrined in a National Declaration and approved by other EU states in the Seville Declaration. A second referendum was passed on the basis of those declarations.
So if the Dublin government now abolishes the Triple Lock, it will break a government promise and Bertie will be seen as having lied.
So how could unionists trust promises from the Dublin government on a united Ireland?
In 2009 the EU’s Lisbon Treaty was also rejected by the Irish electorate. The then taoiseach, Brian Cowen, held a second referendum also on the basis of retaining the Triple Lock.
Micheál Martin’s plan to break the promises of two of his predecessors gives President Connolly moral grounds for referring Triple Lock legislation to the Supreme Court.
She also has a legal basis. Article 29 of the constitution affirms Ireland’s “devotion to the ideal of peace and friendly cooperation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality”.
Would abandoning the Triple Lock conflict with the constitution? If the Supreme Court decided that it did, then the Triple Lock legislation would have to be abandoned, or put to a referendum.
Any or all of that is likely to end Micheál Martin’s career with wonderful indignity. He is already unpopular in Fianna Fáil because of the Jim Gavin fiasco.
Another informed source in Dublin tells me that one senior Fianna Fáil TD intends to “campaign within the party” to retain the Triple Lock. There is more than Bertie Ahern in Fianna Fáil who oppose the taoiseach’s plans.
Martin would certainly like to have an abolition bill passed by the time Ireland assumes the six-month EU presidency next July.
His only hope is that Catherine Connolly lacks the subtlety of Michael D Higgins, who defended neutrality without offending anyone.
It will be easier to push Connolly on to the wrong side of public opinion, as Ireland builds up its military capability allegedly to defend its neutrality.
Certainly the view in Dublin is that the government will not tolerate dissent from her as they did from Higgins.
The taoiseach and the president appear to be on a collision course over Irish foreign policy.
The outcome of that collision will shape Irish domestic politics for some time to come.