According to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Dermot Ahern, the United Nations "is - and will remain - the cornerstone of Ireland's foreign policy". Speaking at the Forum on Europe yesterday to welcome the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, Mr Ahern set out the Government's main policies, particularly on UN co-operation with the European Union in crisis management, the theme of yesterday's meeting.
It was an impressive occasion, which gave all the parliamentary parties and the principal non-governmental organisations the opportunity to hear Mr Annan's views and respond to them. He paid a generous tribute to this country by saying "the Irish people don't just preach multilateralism - they practise it".
In explaining his priorities for the rest of his time in office Mr Annan put UN reform centre stage. The basic structures of the world organisation were laid down two generations ago at the end of the second World War, reflecting geopolitical realities then. They are now redundant. Radical reform is required to bring them into line with the contemporary world - whether in terms of Security Council representation and decision-making, timely prevention of conflict, or meeting the humanitarian and developmental goals set out in the Millennium Declaration of 2000. This is about justice not charity, said Mr Annan, quoting Bono. Wisely, he added that it's also about being smart, since "as long as billions of people have little hope of a better life, our world has no hope of being stable and secure".
He is relying heavily on a group of experts to recommend change, so that "if 2003 was a year of deep division, and 2004 has been a year of sober reflection, let's make 2005 a year of bold action".
Mr Annan insisted that UN co-operation with the EU is a central part of his strategy: "I want to leave you in no doubt of how important strengthened EU capacities are to the UN". He is excited by the recent developments in EU security strategy and by the development of EU "battle groups" or rapid reaction forces which can be made available to the UN to head off crises and prepare the way for UN peacekeeping forces. Yesterday's session of the Forum on Europe had a valuable and necessary debate on these issues, which will loom large in the forthcoming referendum on the EU constitutional treaty. If Ireland's multilateralism is to be effective we should participate fully in them so long as their deployment has a UN mandate. Those who disagree fly in the face of the UN's own best thinking on the evidence of what Mr Annan had to say yesterday.
Mr Ahern sought to retrieve political and moral ground lost by Minister of State, Mr Conor Lenihan's shockingly ill-judged admission that Ireland will not meet the UN's 0.7 per cent development aid target by 2007. He said it will be met, but unfortunately he did not restore any deadline. If Ireland is indeed serious about UN reform he should do so.