Before we broke for lunch, I indicated the attitude of the Labour Party to this amendment and said that I very much welcomed the discussion it facilitated. I had been outlining my disagreement with the rather shrill contribution of Deputy Mitchell. The morality of different positions was referred to in the proposal of the amendment and in Deputy Mitchell's reply and I address that because it is a very important issue.
I concluded my previous remarks by saying one cannot argue for a kind of realism, the content of which is militarism requiring the provision of defence capacity, as the only basis of practical policy and as somehow an alternative to the complicated opportunities of diplomacy which are perceived as being softer. Deputy Mitchell invited the public to be afraid, basing that fear on a lack of capacity to defend ourselves. That has many echoes of Cold War thinking, but the fear we should have is of the collapse of diplomacy in relation to military posturing. The collapse of diplomacy has meant the loss of authority by the General Secretary of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, in relation to the members of the Security Council, particularly its permanent members, and a perceived distance between the moral instinct of the General Assembly and the abuse of their positions by those permanent members.
Ireland ran a campaign for membership of the Security Council on a platform of reform of the UN about which we have not heard a single word since it became a member. It also ran on the basis of a commitment of 0.7% of GNP in overseas development aid, which it has broken, and it has offered rhetorical flourishes in Johannesburg when it might have been required to offer more solid commitments.
The reason it is right for people to table amendments to flush out the Government's position and justify the Labour Party's third reform initiative coming out of this debate – the European Institutions Bill – is that certain kinds of accountability are required. I represent as many plain people as Deputy Mitchell does and they ask me rather direct questions too, one of which I put to the Minister of State. Is it not poisoning the atmosphere in which we are trying to achieve something if he cannot tell us whether our Government supports Mr. Blair's initiative for war, President Chirac's suggestion that Iraq be given a three weeks to readmit inspectors or the German suggestion that a considerable body of proof is required before a strike on Iraq can be justified? After the event there will be parliamentary questions in November when tens of thousands of people may have been killed and then we will have a statement in relation to other initiatives saying that the Quartet has met and been very concerned about Gaza and Jenin. The Irish people are saying they are willing to share sovereignty, but want to know what was said in their name in relation to fundamental principles.
I ran into all of this as far back as 1981 when I published an article in Studies arguing for a foreign policy committee, an ad hoc one having been established. It was opposed tooth and nail for years, but the principle was that things could have been discussed there before they became a reality. There is a message for members of Fianna Fáil in this. As a former Minister, I inherited a habitats directive from the European Union and although I have never regretted signing it, the opposition to its implementation should have been debated when it was being drafted. There is no point in the Government saying that all of this should have been known and that everything is fine when it is fudging our foreign policy.
The plain people Deputy Mitchell thinks should be shaking in their beds until we have the capacity to blow planes out of the sky also say other fundamental things. For instance, they say that perhaps the reason we do not voice our opposition to regimes being toppled and various aspects of the abuse of human rights is that, as the recipient of the largest share of foreign direct investment from the United States, we are not free to do so. There is also the matter of the very welcome interest shown by the United States in the Northern Ireland peace process. When one discusses these matters quietly over a glass of red or white wine, one is told by various people that they are interested in the achievements of quiet diplomacy. The good old embassies have no problem in rounding up a troupe of gin and tonic servants to run off to hear the different versions of events.
There is a real gap and a real anxiety which leads people to assert that there is such a thing as an Irish foreign policy. While I accept we have to place our foreign policy in a pool of sovereignty with other nations with which we have co-operation, we are still entitled to hear what it is. Currently, we do not get many opportunities to do so. In October, when the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs is reconstituted, one will find that it is poorly staffed and financed, has little research capacity, that, once appointed, its chairperson will be briefed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and that, apart from a few set pieces, statements and so forth, it will not get very far.
It is time the Government side stopped abusing those of us who have a genuine concern about transparency in Irish foreign policy. Having entered into talks with the Government and obtained a specific reference to neutrality in the Constitution, a place I have described as appropriate and judiciable and in which jurisprudence can be lodged with safety, the Labour Party recorded a real achievement. The approach taken is better than aspiring to seek to influence the other member states in other ways. I also doubt whether a protocol is achievable.
The difference between Deputy Gay Mitchell and me is that I very much respect the position of those arguing against a European armaments industry, an unaccountable foreign policy and the absence of transparency. There are other issues at stake, which are neither abstract nor academic and were not invented by me. Perhaps one feature lost during the Second Stage debate was the very fine contributions which referred to Article 133. How do the Minister of State and the Government respond to the suggestion that financial interests have a greater influence on European decision making than Irish citizens and have found it easier to access the Commission on issues of trade? As all these issues are very real, we do not need lectures on the need to have, as it were, anti-aircraft installations around the country.
I also want to reply explicitly to a question as old as James Dillon, namely, the notion that neutrality is a concept which was somehow invented. In 1972 Tony Browne and I wrote a booklet on positive neutrality for the Labour Party which drew on writing on neutrality as old and older than James Connolly's first writing. We used the concept of positive neutrality, not to describe some kind of impotence, but to show how one would use one's position as an opponent of empire and war to try to conduct diplomacy using transcendent principles by which people could live, operate and resolve conflicts.
That was the background to neutrality. The problem was the fudge that emerged later. Let us examine the position of Members of this House when I entered it in 1973 or even as early as your election to the House, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Members loved to get up on their hind legs and declare Ireland to be militarily neutral but not ideologically neutral. What did they mean by that? They meant that if it came to a choice between Franco and saving the Spanish Republic in its day, they would choose Franco. For a time certain Members on the Fine Gael benches, notably James Dillon, were suggesting that Ireland should become the 51st state of the United States. The irony is that the dishonesty on neutrality came from people who did not want to declare on whose side they would line up if it came to a choice between the western anti-communist rhetoric, the Soviet Union and what was described by various people writing from the perspective of India as "The Third Way". India, which had achieved independence, argued that one did not have to choose between an abused communist system in the Soviet Union or the western system because there were other countries emerging into the family of nations.
Reference was made to Patrick Keating. I challenge Members to refute that our best period was during the Aiken era when we carved out a particular character to Irish foreign policy. What were its constituent parts? We gave a lead at the time, the legacy of which is that we continue to lead in the area of non-nuclear proliferation and the declaring of nuclear arms illegal. Certain Members accused people who raised the issue of neutrality of being somehow vague – cowardice and hypocrisy were the phrases used. The slide has been on their part because their position is that we should adopt an approach which would allow us to avoid ever having to criticise anything about the West. How can they justify this?
The argument between the Green Party and the Labour Party is about how to achieve a particular end. It is a respectful difference of opinion. I respect the position of Green Party members and I am sure they respect mine. The notion that realists are somehow playing a game is destroying political trust in this country. The House would be surprised at the number of people throughout this country who ask questions every day about our attitude on all foreign policy issues, from Palestine to Gaza and elsewhere. There is a far greater interest in all these issues than the Government realises.
The way to approach the people is for the Government to admit to them that it did not explain what has been done in their name in Europe, that it went into Intergovernmental Conference processes which were not open and drafted and participated in treaties from which there has been no comeback for the people in general and the Parliament in particular. It should apologise for this and tell the people it understands the reasons they voted as they did in the last referendum, that it is making changes and that, having listened to their concerns about neutrality, it will, in future, have an anticipatory discussion about major changes in the European Union and Ireland's relations to it, including resourcing our capacity to examine issues in advance.
All this would be very positive. There is no point in painting a picture of oneself as being sophisticated when in fact one is avoiding all the moral issues. As a member of the Cabinet during the crisis in Srebrenica, I do not claim that moral questions are easy and I am reluctant to use this category of morality as an example. Faced with a human rights situation of the magnitude of Srebrenica on one's borders, which is the morally superior position – to be impotent or consistent with one's previous position that one cannot become involved? One is challenged in such circumstances to take moral action. However, while action is required, it also means that if one is to create for oneself a capacity to act in such situations, one must create all the necessary transparencies, including those related to the logistics of sharing information, mechanisms of control, possession of weapons, consultations, training and other matters. We are not doing this. If one fudges the relationships between those with a simplistic military agenda and those with a defence agenda which is shaded, one loses one's capacity to have an authentic response to issues as morally challenging as the one I describe.
Having argued in good faith for a particular inclusion in the Constitution, we intend to stick to it as our preferred position. At the same time, it is very important to realise, accept and listen to the value of this debate which has introduced issues neglected for too long.
