Professor Ben Tonra:

I thank the Chairman and thank the committee for the invitation to speak on the review of Irish foreign policy. I also thank the committee staff for their courtesy.

I have supplied a written statement and I will not go into it in any detail in the ten minutes allotted to me. If any member wishes me to respond bilaterally at any stage, I would be more than happy to have any kind of dialogue they like on some of the issues I will raise.

I will outline two quick points of context before examining six issues that are worthy of analysis and that the committee will perhaps raise in the context of this contribution to the review. The first point is the notion of Ireland as a small state. There is no doubt that we all agree that Ireland is a small state and that its smallness has implications for what we can and cannot do. The second point of context is the international context within which we are operating that is, oddly enough, very facilitative and positive for states such as Ireland. Lastly, I will examine some specific issues.

In terms of small states like Ireland, let us bear in mind that most states are small in the international system. As somebody has said, the academy tends to focus on larger states and that does not benefit or lead to an understanding of how international relations work. There has been a lot of debate on what defines a small country. My favourite definition of a small state is that the notion of a small country seems to be reserved for large countries with small populations, small countries with large populations, small countries with small populations and, sometimes, small countries that just mind their own business.

Smallness is relative because, regardless of its definition, small does not mean insignificant because there are things about small countries that often give them greater power than they possibly even think they have. In my paper I go into some detail and talk about areas where I think Ireland has additional power. In the field of international relations we talk about soft power, that is, the power to attract and persuade. There are areas, as I say in my paper, that I have examined such as the diaspora, Irish culture, Irish history, the power of attraction of our ideas and the values that underpin Irish foreign policy from history. All those elements cumulatively give us potential and possibility, and we have seen this done successfully in the past. I will use the cliché that Ireland can punch above its weight in certain sectors in certain areas at certain times, and there is great potential.

The second point of context is the examination of where small states fit in the international arena. It may seem slightly counter-intuitive and odd to say that the international system has never been better for small states. We have never had as much potential for small state action in the international system in history as we have today. International law, multilateral institutions and norms of international behaviour all contribute to the possibility of small states making a significant contribution.

Nowadays we also have much less violence internationally than we have ever had before. A number of serious analyses have been published in the past four or five years that examined the hard numbers. Even in the post-war environment there is less conflict, violence and war today than there has been since the end of the Second World War but, as Members will be aware, we had a huge spike in the early 1990s.

The international system, in a sense, is very positive for and conducive to small states wishing to make a contribution. That has led to a reappraisal of security or foreign policy for security. We talk in academic terms about human security, critical security, development and gender. We talk about things now, in the context of security, that we have never talked about before. We have concepts like responsibility to protect, which challenges some very old fashioned notions of what state sovereignty is about.

There is great potential in the international system and academics talk about international security in a very different manner, but there is a proviso. It is very easy in a European context to make the argument and talk in that way. However, if one is in a central African republic, China and many other parts of Asia, security is still very much red in tooth and claw and war still matters. Many people would argue that, in a European context, we live in a bubble and that the security bubble in Europe is paid for by others. Many would argue that the United States and the NATO alliance allow us in Europe to talk about security in a new way. All I am saying is that there is an argument about the matter. If one accepts the argument that international security has changed, that the world is changing and that small states have greater potential in this world, then Ireland is ideally placed. There are things about Ireland's foreign policy that place us in pole position to make the kind of contribution to the kind of international system we think is out there.

In terms of Irish foreign policy - which I outlined in detail in my paper - we privilege the force of law over the law of force, we are committed to the UN as a central structure and we are comfortable with ideas of shared or pooled sovereignty. Ireland has had a very difficult history but it has grappled successfully with issues of conflicted identities, peace processes and resolutions that are not finished, and we have experience we can share. Ireland also has a great record in supporting development in the global south. It is for all those reasons Ireland is well placed, in principle, as a small state and, in practice, in terms of where we are both in Europe and the world.

I would like to put six things on the committee's agenda in terms of its contribution to the White Paper. That was a Freudian slip and I meant to say the strategic review.

The first is about communications and the way diplomacy must communicate in a different way. Social media is an obvious one. We see lots of foreign ministers using social media, including Twitter, in an effective way but it requires thought and appreciation and one cannot use Twitter like a fax machine to issue press releases. People who are good at it are good at it for a reason so one needs a strategy behind it.

We also need diplomats to communicate more effectively with civil society. My paper also details the idea of a virtual embassy. This is not a shop window but something with real functionality for people to get services and consular help through the window of the embassy. Another option is a consular app on a mobile phone. If someone is in trouble overseas, one can push a button and be in contact with someone in Dublin or be directed to services in the country the person is in. We should think more imaginatively about the way in which technology can help us to communicate.

Another item on the agenda is the use of languages. We suffer from the benefit and the curse of being native speakers of English. It can make us lazy in terms of our diplomacy because lots of other people speak English as a second or third language but we lose things if we are speaking to someone's second or third language. The capacity and the ability of our diplomats to learn languages must be thought about carefully.

The political and economic reporting from Irish embassies is the added value of Irish diplomacy. Nothing can replace a good diplomat in post who can give one a feel for the conversation in the country, the arguments in the country and what its policies are. We need to think about the nature and extent of our diplomatic network. It is extraordinarily small. The size of our missions is extraordinarily small and it is not good enough to say that we are under-represented in Asia so we can close a few embassies in Europe and open them in Asia. As long as there are votes in the European Council of Ministers, we need people in every European capital providing intelligence and information on what is going on and the nuances and sophistication of arguments in those countries. We need to think about the diplomatic network in a more serious way than we have to date.

We can be more imaginative about staffing our missions. We can use secondment and short-term contracts and we can be more imaginative about who we send out to our embassies overseas. We must address the fundamental question of the ridiculously small size of our diplomatic network. We can also use the diaspora in more imaginative ways. One of the examples to which I refer is the attempt to set up a virtual network of foreign policy experts. I know 30 people working overseas, in the UN, in think tanks and in universities, who would love to be part of a network that can contribute to Irish policy development and foreign policy dissemination. We could do that simply through an existing social media platform without having conferences or expenses. We must also think about the European External Action Service. It has not had a good couple of years and has been slow in development. When it was being set up, we talked about sharing premises and resources and piggybacking on the European External Action Service. We should think about that again, despite the weaknesses, difficulties and problems that have been raised frequently. We must think more imaginatively and invest in the human capital of Irish diplomacy over the bricks and mortar of Irish diplomacy.

The fifth item I talk about is peacekeeping. There has been a Green Paper and there will be a White Paper on defence tackling this issue directly. Peacekeeping has given real muscle to Irish diplomacy. Credibility comes with commitment and the commitment we have shown through peacekeeping has given Irish diplomacy and Irish foreign policy an international credibility it would not otherwise have. We must think about it and about its deployment more seriously. Mr. Noel Dorr talked about the triple lock and I make the point in my paper. We never talked to one another about our respective contributions. We need some kind of a fail-safe, not just in the case where there is overwhelming international consensus that the peacekeeping force needs to be there but one permanent member of the Security Council selfishly goes against it and vetoes an operation, which is a real possibility rather than a theoretical one. What if Irish citizens abroad are in difficulty, there needs to be a military mission to protect them and someone says "No" or the UN is unable to make a decision in that respect? Are we seriously saying that we would refuse to participate because the Chinese ambassador at the UN Security Council raised a well-manicured hand and vetoed the operation? We need the fail-safe of a two-thirds Dáil majority or some other mechanism.

Finally I refer to thematic policy, which has been mentioned over and over again. We have a real profile in certain areas of foreign policy. I would not overstate it or over-egg it but we have a profile in development, human rights and, increasingly, gender, politics and disarmament. We have been strong individually but I am asking about putting it together in some way and providing a theme or a name. I hesitate to use the word "brand" but we need some identification of what Irish foreign policy is all about. We need some phrase that encapsulates our approach to the world within which these niche areas can be situated so that they can speak to one another and we can be more constructive and coherent about the way we present these issues to the rest of the world.

I would like to conclude quickly because I would love a deeper conversation about this. The presentation does not offer a map for the contribution of the committee to the White Paper. I am asking the committee members to think more creatively, imaginatively and bravely about how Ireland can contribute to the world. We can make a contribution.