Mr. Joe Noonan:

First, I remind the members that I have made suggestions at the end of my paper. Maybe I did not expand on them, and I direct members’ attention to that. Part of my paper was identifying threats, how threats are identified, who identifies them and why. One of the issues in this discussion is the ever-present lobby. There are powerful interests promoting certain points of view and certain decisions to be taken. They are not always necessarily transparent about their presence in the room. If we are talking about the UN, yes, there are difficulties. If we are looking at guardrails, we have to recognise there is a second crux. There is not just one crux, there are two. The second is the pressure this country can be susceptible to from other countries. We have already seen that and, as I said, it has been voiced by the Tánaiste. The difficulty over the occupied territories Bill is an example of that, as he said eloquently as recently as yesterday that it is lonely out there. That is something you cannot simply glide past. These guys are ruthless. People in charge of big, former imperial powers can be ruthless. When their own interests are challenged, they do what is necessary to pursue those interests. We are not used to that in the same way. We are good at getting on with people. We have a genius expressed in culture, music, language and in other ways. We need to realise the terrain we are inviting our Government into. If we take away this and do not have-----