Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 May 2013
141. Deputy Andrew Doyle asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will detail Ireland's position on the future reform of the United Nations Security Council; if Ireland would vote in favour of expanding the number of permanent members of the UNSC; his views on whether the European Union delegation to the United Nations should one day hold its own permanent seat; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24238/13]
View answerIreland's view is that a more representative, efficient and transparent Security Council is required as part of equipping the United Nations to meet the increasingly complex and diverse challenges of today's world.
We believe that any expansion of the Council’s membership should accommodate Member States which play a particularly significant role in the UN system, for instance financially, in relation to peacekeeping or through their capacity for regional leadership.
Any expansion should also provide for improved African representation. While we would ideally wish to see the complete removal of the veto powers currently enjoyed by the Council's permanent members, there should at the very least be no conferral of such powers on any new members. Ireland, which has been elected to a non-permanent seat on the Council at approximately twenty-year intervals, also considers it important that any new arrangements would not reduce the frequency of membership available to smaller Member States at present.
Reform of the Security Council should, in addition, encompass greater moves to improve its working methods and increase transparency. In this respect, Ireland is a member of a new grouping, ACT (Accountability, Coherence and Transparency), which was launched in New York on 2 May 2013 and which is seeking to make the working methods of the Security Council more transparent, efficient and inclusive.
The European Union is not a Member State under the terms of the UN Charter; it merely has observer status at the UN. It is hypothetical and premature, accordingly, to form a view as to whether the EU delegation should one day be granted a permanent seat on the Security Council.
