asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the continuing work of the Stockholm Disarmament Conference and of any specific initiatives taken by the Irish delegation.
Ceisteanna—Questions Oral Answers - Stockholm Disarmament Conference.
10.
I would refer the Deputy to the reply given by the Minister of State at my Department to similar questions from the Deputy on 16 May of this year. I regret to say that there have been no major developments at the conference since then, even if discussion has become progressively more detailed on the various proposals before the conference, which were described in the reply of 16 May. No new proposals have been tabled since then.
The lack of progress at the conference in attributable not only to difficulties in reconciling the divergent approaches of Eastern and Western participating states, which were described in the Minister of State's reply of 16 May, but also to the difficult overall climate in East-West relations. One must hope that this climate will show some improvement following the recent meetings of Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko with President Reagan and Secretary of State Shultz. It is to be hoped too that the readiness of Western participating states, including neutral and non-aligned countries, to initiate substantive negotiations at Stockholm on concrete measures to make military behaviour more open, and military intentions more calculable, will soon be matched by all participating states.
There are some hopes that the conference will, before the end of the year, adopt a working structure which could help real negotiations to get under way. This in itself would be a useful step, given the lack of significant progress to date.
The Irish delegation has not so far tabled specific proposals of its own, for the reasons set out in the reply of 16 May: First, because proposals already tabled by Western participants, including neutral and non-aligned states, cover much of what the first stage of the conference could hope to achieve and, if agreed, would represent considerable progress. Secondly, because the work of the conference is still at a largely exploratory stage. Whether the Irish delegation will in due course table proposals, alone or with others, will depend on how the work evolves when effective negotiations get under way.
Could the Minister outline the extent of the co-operation which has taken place between Ireland and other neutral countries at the Stockholm Disarmament Conference?
We keep in constant contact with the other neutral, non-aligned countries. We have not tabled motions in that regard, as I said, because of the so far exploratory nature of the conference. If we felt it appropriate to join in tabling such a resolution, if one could be drafted, we would certainly do so. Likewise, we try to keep in contact with our Ten partners to try to find a common position with them on our attitude to many of the resolutions which are tabled. The difficulty there, as the Deputy will appreciate, is that they tend to move more in a NATO bloc, all other nine member states being members of NATO. There could not then be a common Ten approach for the reason that we are not a member of the Ten and we would have to avoid that. We tend to keep in touch with both groups, the Nine who are also members of the Ten and the neutral non-aligned countries, without being members of either. Our concern would be to ensure that the conference keeps moving in the right direction towards more transparency and more confidence-building motions in Europe, ultimately with the objective of building up some element of trust between the super-powers which would allow them to get around the table and have much more substantive and very much more important and real disarmament talks in the future.
Would the Minister agree that Ireland ought to be playing a more active and distinctive role at the conference and bringing forward initiatives of its own?
That keeps on being said, but the people who say it rarely follow up with suggestions of what Ireland could be doing, except to say that we should not get into this or that bloc and that we should put down proposals. As long as we can influence people towards putting down proposals that is a very useful, important and constructive role. We can, if necessary, and certainly do not exclude doing so in the future, put down a motion of our own. However, at this stage our approach should be to try to influence other motions which are going down.
Would the Minister agree that the subject matter of this question is one which could appropriately be considered by the national parliaments of all the countries concerned and if he will join with me in condemning the fact that there is no vehicle in this Parliament, that is, no foreign affairs committee, to consider this important matter?
That is another question. It does not arise out of this one.
It threatens the peace of Irishmen as well as other nationals.
I have no reason to believe that this matter is not being discussed in other parliaments around the world. I just do not know. Other countries of which I know have the same kind of machinery for getting matters on to the floor which we have here, plus some additional methods. I could not rule out what the Deputy called the foreign affairs committee in the Parliament. I have said a number of times and hope to arrange for this, that foreign affairs matters are not debated often enough in this House. I should like to see all Members of the House taking part in that, not just a select group from a number of parties. I hope that I will be able to arrange, some time in this session, a two-day debate on foreign affairs.
Is the Minister not aware that I put down a question to him nine months ago to that effect?
I do not care who gets the credit for it. As long as we get the debate going, that is the important thing.
The responsibility is on the Government to initiate the debate.
That is correct. I have said so to the Whip.
Would the Minister agree that this question of disarmament —and in particular that of nuclear disarmament—is the most important single issue facing the international world today? Am I right—and I hope I am and that the Minister will confirm what I took from his answers—that in this regard we are prepared to and will pursue a separate, independent policy, distinct from that which may or may not be taken by our EEC partners who have different priorities from ours in this area and that we will not be inhibited by any activities of political co-operation within the EEC from standing firmly in the cause of multilateral disarmament and particularly nuclear disarmament? Could he not be a little more definite or specific as to particular initiatives that we might take or might consider taking, in Stockholm, the UN or elsewhere, in view of the fundamental importance of this matter? I am sure that the Minister will agree that we have all been absolutely chilled by some films which have been shown recently about the likely aftermath of nuclear explosions.
Of course, I must agree with Deputy Haughey that this is the most important question facing mankind at the moment. The Stockholm Conference, however, is not about nuclear disarmament or nuclear themes and so is not a suitable subject for that. The Irish Government will take an independent line because we are an independent sovereign State not being a member of any military alliance. We must be independent. Having said that, I would not presume that the other nine members of the EEC who are members of NATO are not equally concerned about disarmament and will not equally want to use their influence and bring pressure to bear on the super-powers to sit around the table and bring about that disarmament. Certainly, I must give them credit for that amount of shared concern which we all feel about the future of mankind unless negotiations start about disarmament.
I was gratified this morning to see that two leaders, one from the East and one from the West, agree on how essential it was that the disarmament talks should be resumed as quickly as possible and how essential it was that the two super-powers should be in a position to talk to one another. For that reason, in my United Nations speech and here again today, I welcomed the first move in that direction which has been taken by the meeting between Foreign Minister Gromyko, Secretary of State Shultz and President Reagan in New York last month. That is certainly an improvement on the position when I was present in New York at a United Nations Conference in 1983 when not alone was there no talking going on, but Foreign Minister Gromyko was not even present. In that 12 months there has been that much inadequate movement but the movement has been there.
One final point, I trust that the Minister will not be too sanguine about the position of our EEC partners in this matter. At a special UN conference on disarmament at which I was present a particular EC Government did not award any great priority to the question of disarmament—rather the reverse.
I do not move at the Heads of Government level. At my level I think that they are concerned.
I shall tell the Minister in confidence.
I can guess.