Ireland's Parliament Votes 79-71 to Drop UN Approval Requirement for Overseas Troop Deployments
DUBLIN — Ireland's Dáil voted 79 to 71 on October 21 to pass the Defence (Amendment) Bill, dropping the United Nations approval leg of the 'triple lock' governing overseas troop deployments; government and Dáil approval will still be required, and the number of personnel deployable without parliamentary approval rises from 12 to 50. Defence Minister Helen McEntee argued that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council should not be able to block Irish deployments. The government says the Security Council has not approved a mission since 2014, and that Irish forces already had to pull out of the EU's Operation Irini and the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon, which ends later this year. Ireland is not a NATO member, and its Defence Forces number a little over 8,000.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 都柏林半便士桥 / Ha'penny Bridge, Dublin。图片：© Sean MacEntee from Monaghan, Ireland / CC BY 2.0，Wikimedia Commons
