{"id":522546,"date":"2026-06-07T02:06:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T02:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/522546\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T02:06:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T02:06:24","slug":"willie-odea-to-micheal-martin-referendum-on-triple-lock-wanted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/522546\/","title":{"rendered":"Willie O’Dea to Miche\u00e1l Martin: referendum on triple lock wanted"},"content":{"rendered":"

Limerick Fianna F\u00e1il TD, Willie O\u2019Dea, has called on his party leader, Mich\u00e9al Martin, to hold a referendum on the triple lock\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Responding to news reports that an Taoiseach was seeking to open up a discussion on a referendum to increase the number of cabinet ministers, Mr O\u2019Dea, a former Cabinet Minister, responded:<\/p>\n

\u201cHow about a referendum people actually want, like on the Triple Lock?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Triple Lock is a legal mechanism that requires three specific approvals before the Irish Defence Forces can be deployed on overseas missions involving more than 12 armed personnel.<\/p>\n

The three conditions are: The deployment must be approved by the Cabinet must authorize the deployment; The D\u00e1il must vote in favour of the deployment; and the there must be formal authorization or a mandate from the UN.<\/p>\n

This mechanism has been a cornerstone of Irish foreign and defence policy since the 1960s, but the government is now proposing reform to remove the requirement for a specific UN mandate. They argue that defence forces deployment and Irish peacekeeping should not be subject to veto by countries on the UN Security Council.<\/p>\n

However, proponents of the Triple Lock say the mechanism protects Irish neutrality.<\/p>\n

Seasoned sovereignty campaigner, Dr Anthony Coughlan, argues that the UN authorisation is not a restraint on Irish sovereignty but a mechanism which prevents Ireland getting dragged into European wars.\u00a0 He points to the Solemn Declaration made by the Irish government in 2002 after Ireland rejected the EU\u2019s Nice Treaty in order to persuade with some voters to change their votes in a re-run of the referendum.<\/p>\n

Many of those replying to Mr O\u2019Dea\u2019s post urged him to call for a referendum on immigration \u2013 and on the EU Migration Pact.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we\u2019re doing referendums, can we do a referendum on migration to Ireland? Maybe cap it at 10%, like the Danish and other sensible countries do,\u201d was one response.<\/p>\n

The Limerick TD has clashed with the Fianna F\u00e1\u00edl leader previously, particularly in relation to power-sharing with Fine Gael.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Limerick Fianna F\u00e1il TD, Willie O\u2019Dea, has called on his party leader, Mich\u00e9al Martin, to hold a referendum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5765,5,86623,7,8,11829,111438],"class_list":["post-522546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news","tag-referendum","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-triple-lock","tag-willie-odea"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116706383349204938","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}