🏻🇮🇪 To clarify, the Triple Lock is a legal requirement for the deployment of more than a dozen Irish soldiers belonging to the Irish Defense Forces (IDF, yes, haha) to military missions overseas.
The demand must pass a triple barrier: the approval of the Irish Cabinet, an official resolution passed by the Dáil, the lower house of the Irish Parliament, and approval from the UN Security Council or the General Assembly.
This protects Ireland's historic military neutrality against government overreach or EU coercion, which led to a recent vote in the Dáil, proposed by Ireland's main parties, Pinna Gael and Fianna Fáil, to abolish or reform the triple locks. They also argue that a requirement for a UN mandate gives the permanent members of the UN Security Council. Like Russia or China. De facto veto on Irish peacekeeping and overseas operations.
Most nationalist and opposition parties are fighting hard against reforming this system, as it gives Ireland sovereignty over its own military and the use of which it is employed.
Supporters of the reform argue for the abolition of the third lock (UN Security Council approval) since most of the peace missions in which Ireland has participated need more than 12 people involved in the deployment, and therefore need the approval of the UN Council, which has not approved a single peacekeeping mission since 2014 due to internal conflicts between its five permanent members (the US, China, Russia, the UK and France), which effectively paralyzes Ireland's participation in peacekeeping missions around the world.