The Government is committed to working with our EU partners to help ensure that the UN is given adequate resources to enable it to fulfil its key international role in conflict prevention and resolution. The UN has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. The forthcoming millennium summit in September will offer the opportunity for the international community to reaffirm its confidence in the UN through a political commitment to strengthen the capacity of the United Nations to deploy peace support operations quickly and effectively.
The United Nations has already made, over many years, a major contribution to peace through peacekeeping operations. Many UN peacekeeping operations have been very successful. We in Ireland can be very proud of the contribution made by our Defence Forces, notably in the Lebanon since 1978. However, there have also been failures. The UN itself is highly aware of the deficiencies in peacekeeping operations which have led to the scenes witnessed recently in Sierra Leone and previously in Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia. The Secretary-General himself has openly admitted that the UN has made grave mistakes.
The Secretary-General has appointed a high-level panel to review all aspects of UN peacekeeping and to report back before the millennium summit. A new generation of complex peacekeeping operations, with political, humanitarian and military dimensions, has made it essential that the various departments and agencies of the UN involved work together in a coherent and co-ordinated manner. This, and the need to improve the UN's rapid deployment capability are among the issues which the review panel will address. We look forward to the report of the panel and will give it our fullest consideration.