Dr. Karen Devine:

May I finish without being interrupted please? In public opinion, the concept of neutrality is UN peacekeeping only; in other words, it is through blue berets and the United Nations peacekeeping forces. Ireland has participated in KFOR and SFOR, which are NATO missions with a UN mandate. It is important to make one point about the context of those missions in that I mentioned earlier that many of the large states and NATO member states traditionally fail to pay their dues on time and in full to the UN which has an impact on UN peacekeeping. I also cited in my submission how NATO member states do not tend to participate in UN peacekeeping missions to the same degree as non-NATO member states and that is the context in which I made those points. I trust that answers the Senator's question.