Security forum aims to be wide-ranging rather than a binary debate on neutrality

It is little surprise that the Government’s forum on international security has become, in the minds of many, a debate on Irish neutrality.

From the moment it was announced last March, in an off-the-cuff comment from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in Brussels, it was framed as a discussion on the future of neutrality.

Some officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs were annoyed that the Taoiseach had casually announced the forum before Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin got the chance. They were even more annoyed that the event was being characterised as a debate on neutrality rather than focusing on broader questions of international security.

Journalists were quickly briefed that neutrality was not up for debate and neither was the question of joining Nato. Rather, the forum was an exercise aimed at increasing public debate and knowledge of security issues in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, changes in the international peacekeeping landscape and increasing threats in the cyber and maritime realms.

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There the matter lay until the intervention by President Michael D Higgins last week when, in an interview with the Business Post, he criticised the make-up of the forum and warned of Ireland’s “drift” towards Nato.

Mr Higgins commented that the forum’s roster was stocked with “the admirals, the generals, the air force, the rest of it”. He also asserted that representatives from Nato countries were invited to speak to the exclusion of speakers from militarily neutral countries.

Various Opposition parties have endorsed the President’s position, with People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett calling the forum a “total stitch-up,” which was “dripping, packed to the rafters with Nato employees, people who have worked with Nato, people associated with the military industrial complex”.

His party colleague Mick Barry said the forum is “rigged” and that the Opposition has been excluded from the speakers list, ignoring the fact that no one from the Government parties is speaking either.

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Since the President’s intervention, some speakers, most of them academics unused to the public spotlight, have privately expressed discomfort at being part of a suddenly politically charged event. A handful have complained of receiving online abuse due to their participation.

A look at the line-up for the forum shows more diversity than the President lets on. Of the 69 panellists, 21 are academics, 16 are diplomats, civil servants or heads of Government bodies and eight are from the business and research sector.

There are just three serving military personnel, all of them Irish, plus a handful of retired officers. Two of the serving officers are generals and one is a commander in the Naval Service seconded to Nato’s Defence Capacity Building unit. Despite the President’s comments, none are admirals and there is no representative from any air force.

Mr Higgins has also complained about the lack of representation from other European neutral countries, ignoring the presence of a senior Swiss defence official and the director of Swisspeace, which describes itself as “a research institute dedicated to advancing effective peacebuilding”.

Much of the criticism of the forum has centred around a perceived dearth of speakers with a background in peace or anti-war activism. People Before Profit’s Paul Murphy claimed there is just one anti-war speaker, Roger Cole of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance.

But again examination of the programme provides a clearer picture. There are speakers from Oxfam, Concern, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution and the Olaf Palme International Centre, which describes itself as the Swedish labour movement’s organisation for international solidarity.

Furthermore, the issue of neutrality is confined to two panels out of 18, although it is fair to assume it is a thread that will run through other panels to some extent.

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Nato is the topic of just one panel. The question those participants will be considering is not whether Ireland should join the alliance but the country’s “engagement with Nato through Partnership for Peace” an initiative the Defence Forces first joined in 1999.

There is also a panel considering the Triple Lock, the mechanism mandating that large groups of Irish troops can only be sent abroad with a UN mandate. This is one of the few areas concerning neutrality that might see significant change in the near future.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin is keen to amend to Triple Lock to prevent permanent members of the security council dictating Irish foreign policy through the use of their veto. The Government will be keen to see the results of this part of the forum.

So far there has been little evidence the President’s comments have discouraged participation. None of the speakers have pulled out and all four events are oversubscribed, officials say.

“He may have done his own cause more harm than good,” said former army officer turned security analyst Declan Power, who is also one of the forum’s panellists. “He has concentrated people’s minds on it.”

Nevertheless, some in Government are worried the controversy that, in the minds of the public at least, the forum has become the one thing they wanted to avoid: a binary debate on Nato or neutrality.