Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

When a country has the Presidency of the EU it must be able to deal on a one-to-one basis with countries outside its normal sphere of interests. It was decided that it would be better to have diplomatic relations with Burma and the DPRK. When our ambassador to North Korea, who is non-residential and operates from Seoul, met the DPRK authorities he made all the relevant points on issues such as human rights and the non-proliferation treaty on our behalf. He would not have been able to make those points if we did not have diplomatic relations with the DPRK. I do not, therefore, accept the Deputy's "head in the sand" attitude in that regard, and God help Ireland if he is ever in charge of foreign policy.

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