DUBLIN

AN EXPERT IN Irish Constitutional Law says that new left-wing President, Catherine Connolly will need a UN mandate if she is to travel abroad because of the country’s peculiar triple lock system for sending its armed forces overseas.

“The Triple Lock, which would have the new President’s support, stipulates that Irish armed forces cannot be deployed overseas without the Government, the Parliament and the United Nations mandating it,” says Professor Dev Bunracht of the Mandate Corporation, a think tank dedicated to well-meaning absurdities in global constitutional law. “As Supreme Commander of the Defence Forces, the President would have to come under the designation imagined in the law. So, in essence, each time she wishes to leave the country, she will probably need a United Nations mandate, and should any of the five permanent members of the security council wish to keep her at home, they can use their veto.

“The Triple Lock was a not terribly well conceived sop to the ultra neutralists in the country way back when. There’s a move on to get rid of it now but it’s still in place. It creates a crazy situation whereby a UN resolution is required for Ireland to deploy troops abroad, which could see Ireland paralyzed during an emergency, indeed even on the island of Ireland itself, unable to send troops to a war zone threatening its security because it cannot get a vote through in New York. Indeed, one could imagine the United Kingdom preventing the movement of Irish troops into Northern Ireland in this way, even if it was deemed essential by Dublin perhaps after a vote for reunification where the jurisdictional issue was still fluid. Ireland could be the first country defeated in a war by UN resolution, or the lack of one.”