Mr. Declan Power:

I disagree with Professor Murphy, respectfully. I know him and have spoken about these matters with him before. His point of view is out of time. Fundamentally, one thing we need to keep in mind is that the Irish State has a responsibility primarily to the security of its people and the integrity of the State. We have to leave room for ourselves to deal with that. Like Dr. Burke, I am not suggesting we join NATO. However, like the UN to an extent, I believe we need to have a relationship with various security actors, because, as Dr. Camino Kavanagh reminds us, we cannot manage security and defence of this island unilaterally. We need to be able to co-ordinate and co-operate. That does not require us to change our stance on mutual defence and common defence issues. We can take leaves out of the book the Nordic states wrote with regard to Nordic Defence Cooperation, NORDEFCO, where Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and Finns at the time all had different policies. Some were in NATO, some were not and some were in the EU, some were not, yet they all managed to co-ordinate on matters to do with their own territorial security. We need to be a little more agile.

I was asked whether Ireland's position ever comes up. Once we are able to do what we say we can do, it is accepted by our partners. It is putting ourselves in a position where at the last minute we cannot deliver that can really damage our reputation.