Below there follows a recent posting in the media as to why our EU puppet theatre of a government have not just betrayed the people, 87% of the electorate oppose the removal of the “Triple Lock” assuring Irish neutrality which was the basis on which the Nice and Lisbon Treaties were finally accepted by referendum having failed in their initial runs A piece as to why this our puppets of a government of the potential compromising of neutrality objection. These assurances and the introduction of the Triple Lock before more than 12 Irish troops can be deployed to a foreign theatre have been removed by the government in a very close vote, but it should have been a referendum. The key driver apart from the anticipated sinecures within the EU or UN or World Bank , is that Ireland will take an ECB loan over 45 years to buy 150billion euro worth of military equipment, mainly from France 9who are financially stuffed) to enable Irish troops participating in EU military adventures under the control of EU military command. The following piece from a post discussing this idiocy follows. But in effect it places all cross Atlantic communication cables and undersea pipelines into the front lines as neutrality finally disappears in a puff of euro debt.
The government argument is that we don’t have control of deployment decisions for peacekeeping as the Russians will veto at the UN Security Council and the most important safeguard within the Triple Lock is that Irish military can only be considered for peacekeeping deployments under UN mandates. The argument offers that not only peacekeeping duties are vetoes but also Irish sovereignty. The irony, deaf toneness and absence of logic of that position is stunning. No only have the Russians never vetoes an Irish peacekeeping UN mandate (e.g. in Africa or The Lebanon) but now not only veto, deployment and command decisions will be made by the EU and the peacekeeping duties will be replaced by peace-enforcement (war fighting mission) with the first deployment being declared to be to disarm Hezbollah for Israel in South Lebanon as announced by our recklessly stupid or self interested Minister for Defence.
This is particularly egregious, given the protective duties of peacekeeping provided by Irish troops in South Lebanon where Israeli and proxy forces have attacked and killed Irish troops protecting villages in South Lebanon since the late with the Irish military 1970s, where local relations are excellent having been built by Irish UN forces through decades or protection of this population. This is perverse in the extreme. The final Irish deployment to UN peacekeeping duties in South Lebanon ends by Ministerial decision on 31st December 2026, and so we see the logic in that decision made earlier in 2026 which a was a very puzzling one for most…
"The removal of the triple lock is criminally irresponsible and nothing more than an attempt to impress NATO, the best boy in the class syndrome. There’s absolutely nothing in it for us. This represents treachery by betraying our national sovereignty. What risk assessment was done before taking this monumental risk. We must reclaim our historic neutrality, offer ourselves as honest and sincere peace brokers and repair our relationship with Russia. Neutrality means neutrality and that means fastidiously refusing to take sides in a conflict, a border dispute that should not concern us. It only takes a stray missile that misfires, a rogue missile operator to fire at the other side. Stop risk taking and reiterate our neutrality immediately.
The EXA cable, formerly called Hibernia Express is a submarine internet cable that transmits mainly financial and banking information between London and New York. A branch comes ashore in County Cork. This cable carries a large proportion of ‘trades’ and general financial activity between the world’s two largest financial hubs. It has been active since 2015 and has attracted little controversy. I wonder if anybody has seriously thought of what would happen if it were cut. The standard answer is that all traffic would be rerouted. The Atlantic Crossing 1 Cable is similar, it stretches from the US East Coast to Mainland Europe and has been operative since 1999. This cable carries mainly voice data between Europe and the US. Then there is the Amitie Cable from the US to France and the UK. It runs to the south of our coastline while the Atlantic Crossing Cable runs to the north of our island.
There are 870,000 miles of undersea cable around the world channeling 99% of all intercontinental internet traffic in about 700 distinct systems. Over the last twenty years civilisation as we know it has come to depend on these high speed fibre optic cables. These cables are sophisticated, transmitting data between Europe and the US in milliseconds, a far cry from the pioneering Valencia Island phone cable of the Victorian era where ‘the voices went under the sea to America’.
These cables are now in the front line of a very different type of war, a hybrid war. The general position of these cables are well known but information on their precise location can be a closely guarded secret. These cables are privately owned so there are considerations of commercial sensitivity. Since the commencement of the border dispute in the Ukraine there has been over 500 logged incidences of Russian ‘trawlers’ loitering above sensitive underseas cables. Most of this occurred in international waters and is therefore perfectly legal. Global Fishing Watch is a satellite based tracking platform used worldwide by the fishing industry. An analysis of its data identified 17 particular trawlers that made several low speed passes over the chartered position of cables. Sometimes the ‘trawler’ would appear to follow the direction of the cable at low speed giving rise to speculation that it was deploying an unmanned robotic submarine to map the cables with precision.
In my opinion it would be extraordinary if Russia was not giving itself the capability of knocking out these cables should war happen between NATO and Russia. The history of European wars is that they happen by accident when bluffing goes too far. The First World War happened after a double assassination in Sarajevo while the Second World War occurred over the ‘free city’ of Danzig. Nobody could have predicted either.
Quite apart from internet subsea cables there are also utility pipelines and cables, all equally vulnerable. On Wednesday evening the Dáil voted to remove the ‘triple lock’ from Irish UN deployment. This moves us closer to NATO by removing UN oversight as a prerequisite to deployment. Make no mistake about it, if war occurred between NATO and Russia it would go nuclear in the opening minutes as Russia would attempt to deny NATO our deep water anchorages and two long runways. And of course cables and utilities would be cut paralysing Europe."
