Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Dorr whom I have never met but whom I hear on radio all the time. I have nothing but sincere and deep admiration for his comments. I have done my best to absorb his full contribution and I have several questions. I am not sure how to present a review of foreign policy and external relations in six or ten bullet points so that foreign policy is changed. How one actually influences change is obscure. What changes do we want? I agree 100% with most of what is in Mr. Dorr's paper but I am not quite sure how the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will take on board what we will speak about as a change of policy.

I must confess I feel slightly embarrassed as an Irish European when I see terrorist organisations running campaigns and destabilising parts of Africa such as Mali, Mauritania and northern Nigeria. There is also the lawlessness and ruthlessness of those who kidnap for ransom human beings and ships on the high seas. I am embarrassed to see the French going in after the terrorists ostensibly to protect human life and possibly governments. We are happy for others do the dirty work while we as Europeans fall back on the easy soft bed of roses of our neutrality. The paper is provocative in so far as Mr. Dorr mentions he does not want to see Ireland join any military alliance but he also discusses the triple lock and argues for a less rigid interpretation of our neutrality. How does he argue we would create this balance between loosening up the definition of neutrality while avoiding breaching our constitutionality?

Having spent quite a while abroad I must state the Irish police force and Irish Army are phenomenal in whatever country they enter in a peacekeeping or peace enforcement role.

Irish troops and citizens in aid organisations are held in high esteem. Should we not be proud that when some troops were pulled out of the Golan Heights or the Sinai Desert, Irish troops went in? Consider the Lebanese villages where Irish troops are warmly welcomed as peacekeepers when other troops would not be. How do we build on this situation? I am not sure what element of foreign policy we must change so as to engage further in world conflicts, particularly in Africa. We should be proud that the Army is playing a leading role in Somalia. How do we become greater participants in the human struggle for fairness without conflicting with the Constitution and the neutrality clause?

I agree with Mr. Dorr in many respects. I will conclude by saying that the British and their media were outrageous. There is a strong anti-European slant, as mentioned in this paper. The Romanians and Bulgarians were highlighted as people who would swamp Great Britain, notwithstanding the fact that when Ireland allowed the free flow of labour 12 months or two years ago, there was no flood or conflict. Those who came here are happily settling in. How can foreign policy change nations' negativity, which is basically racism? For this reason, I agree that the EU is a phenomenal club of nations working collectively as best they can.

I will tease out a final matter. The negative developments - in Mali, the Central African Republic, southern Sudan, parts of northern Nigeria and so on - were mentioned, but while there has been retrenchment in some areas, we should applaud what has been achieved elsewhere - for example, economic growth in many African countries. Someone mentioned trade. The African ambassadors, who sit as a collective of seven in Ireland, argue forcibly for trade, not charity. From their point of view, there are benefits to developing trade links.

I will be provocative about Northern Ireland. It is a sectarian state, notwithstanding the Good Friday Agreement. There seems to have been a terrible divvying out of power to two sectarian forces, the Unionists and the republicans. People in the middle are being squeezed. For example, can one imagine recruiting to a police force on the basis of religion or needing to declare one's self a Catholic? Where does this leave the dissenter, the middle ground and normal, healthy democracy? Having spoken to some former paramilitaries in the North, I know they feel betrayed by the Unionists. On the Nationalist side, funding drawn down from Europe, Britain and Ireland is being dispersed throughout the Nationalist community. Does this not reinforce the divisions that created problems previously?

Could we evolve a new formula for engagement? Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia are the Union's peripheral countries. We were led up the garden path and told that everything would go smoothly in Ukraine and that it would sign agreements with the EU. What sort of intelligence units are operating in the EU that could get the situation so badly wrong? Armenia had already pulled out of the relationship, yet there was no early warning sign. In terms of the EU, with Baroness Ashton and so on, can Ireland as an independent nation in the Union make bilateral forays into these conflict areas with a view to intervening diplomatically in support of ordinary people in Ukraine, Moldova or Georgia?