Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

The Government has not yet decided what we should do. This goes to the core of what I want to achieve. No matter what city I visit, the first item on the agenda is the Security Council. It is reprehensible that so much attention is given to bums on seats. These countries should be concentrating on bringing their development aid up to standard and stopping the arms trade into Africa. There are 600 million small arms in the continent and 300,000 people die every year because of their use. These are the issues that should be addressed, not the UN Security Council.

See this speech in context