There are widening fears that Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil party leader Micheál Martin is being motivated by foreign interests and not by Irish ones.

A crisis is building within Fianna Fáil itself over the government’s plans to abolish the triple lock on deploying Irish troops in defiance of the traditional neutrality of the 26 County state.

A group of 17 Fianna Fáil TDs and senators signed a letter challenging the government’s plan. The intervention, co-ordinated by Willie O’Dea, the veteran Limerick TD, laid bare the scale of unease within the main coalition party over plans to remove the requirement for UN Security Council approval before sending Irish troops on overseas missions.

It states: “We request that the parliamentary party discuss changes to the legislation governing the ‘triple lock’ as a matter of urgency.

“This is in view of the fact that this constitutes a fundamental change in traditional Fianna Fail policy as enunciated in successive ard fheiseanna, policy manifestos, public statements etc. The triple lock was also a central factor in enabling the government to persuade the Irish people to support the Nice and Lisbon referendums.

“Consequently, it is urgent that this issue be discussed by the parliamentary party in advance of the relevant legislation being presented to the Dail and Seanad.”

Under the triple lock, approval is required from the government, the Dail and the UN Security Council before more than 12 members of the Defence Forces can be sent on overseas missions. Under the proposed Defence (Amendment) Bill, the UN requirement would be removed, meaning only approval by cabinet and the Oireachtas would be necessary.

Ahead of the opening of Ireland’s presidency of the European Council, which got under way on Wednesday (pictured) at a cost to the Irish taxpayer of €300 million, Martin was forced to deny claims that it will be used as a “propaganda jamboree” to justify the abolition of the triple lock.

People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said that “rather than using the position of the EU presidency to defend our position of neutrality”, the government “will cave in to the agenda of Ursula von der Leyen and the EU to ramp up in an enormous way the militarisation of Europe and the arms industry in Europe”.

Sinn Féin has accused the coalition of a dangerous attack on Irish neutrality in a move that is “completely against the wishes of the Irish people”.

“Evidence points to the fact that the vast majority of Irish people believe that the Triple Lock Neutrality Protection is necessary and is an important protection to ensure our neutrality,” said Sinn Féin spokesman Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire.

“If the Government is so confident in its position of dismantling the Triple Lock, especially considering that previous referendums passed on the basis of the Triple Lock Neutrality Protection, then the obvious thing the Government should do is put it to the people to decide through a referendum whether they agree with the Triple Lock Neutrality Protection being abandoned.

“Over several decades, neutrality has formed a central part of our foreign policy, a foreign policy that has allowed Ireland to punch significantly above its weight.

“Ireland will always be a small country, we will never be a major military power, but for the size of the country that we are, we have been able to exercise influence way beyond our weight. It is also because of the dedication and service of generations of Irish peacekeepers.

“The Triple Lock is a neutrality protection that ensures that any deployment of Irish peacekeepers abroad happens on the strongest basis of international law and not on any kind of adventurism.”

Meanwhile, Martin has continued to ignore criticism of the use of Shannon Airport as a staging post for the conflict in the Middle East, including this week for a US military plane used to transport soldiers on its way back from an Israeli airbase. The warplane was serviced at the airport in the same week a UN inquiry found Israel “deliberately carried out acts inflicting death on Palestinian children”.

The Dublin government has implacably resisted public pressure to take action against Israel, even gutting the text of a bill which would ban imports from illegal Israeli settlements. The bill now does not include services in its ban, something Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said put Ireland on the “wrong side of history” and which the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) has said has “no legal basis”.

Martin has also moved to prevent a widely urged boycott of Israeli football games, after widespread public anger at an announvement that the fixture is going ahead. The Football Association of Ireland has confirmed Ireland’s Uefa Nations League fixture against Israel on October 4th has been moved from Dublin to Bačka Topola, a remote region of Serbia, in order to evade protesters.