Russia’s embassy in Ireland has accused Helen McEntee of misleading the Irish public about Russia and about how U.N. peacekeeping missions are formed.
McEntee, who serves as minister for foreign affairs and trade and for defence, spoke about Russia during an Oct. 21 debate in the Dáil on the “Triple Lock” law. Two days later, the embassy answered in a statement posted on X, calling her allegations “reprehensible and misleading.”
The embassy’s statement gives its own summary of what she said. In that account, McEntee objected that the law lets Russia, a permanent Security Council member, influence where Irish peacekeepers are sent or even block Ireland from a mission. She also described Russia as “attacking European member-states,” naming Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland.
McEntee’s remarks are quoted here as they appeared in the embassy’s statement. The supplied material does not include a full record of the Dáil debate or a response from the Irish government.
The embassy disputed her description of the U.N. process. The Security Council does not vote on which countries join a peacekeeping mission, it said. A mission’s makeup is instead worked out in consultations between the U.N. Secretariat and interested member countries.
Russia has never been known to oppose Ireland’s participation in any U.N. peacekeeping mission, the statement added. Those claims have not been independently verified.
The embassy dismissed McEntee’s comments about attacks on European Union countries as “totally baseless” and “dangerously provocative.” No responsible member of a government would use such rhetoric, it wrote.
Decisions on neutrality and other policy matters belong solely to the Irish government and the Irish people, the statement said. But it argued those choices should not rest on false assumptions, as it said the minister’s did.
The embassy also accused the Irish government of deliberately questioning how the U.N. works to push a domestic policy agenda, despite its stated commitment to the U.N.’s central role in world affairs.
It closed by saying “exercises in Russophobia” cannot make up for what it called a serious failure in Ireland’s approach to relations with Russia and to peace and stability in Europe.
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