The United Nations probably occupies the same place in public consciousness as the fire brigade. When the international scene looks relatively calm and sedate, Sean or Sinead Citizen does not think very much about it.

Let a serious crisis flare, however, and the cry goes up: "Send for the UN. What's the UN doing about this?" The UN is overshadowed in day-to-day media debate and discussion in Ireland by the European Union.

While the EU is obviously a major economic force with a developing political and even security role, as a regional body it could never replace the UN, although there is increasing co-operation between the two organisations.

At the top of the UN pyramid is the Security Council, which cannot be understood simply as an executive committee for carrying out the will of the General Assembly. Citing the need for "prompt and effective action", the UN Charter gives it primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. The council acts on behalf of the members in this regard, and its decisions are legally binding.

Five of the members have a permanent council seat and a veto on its actions, while the other 10 are elected to serve a two-year term. Ireland was elected to the council late last year: its term of office began in January and it will hold the presidency for the month of October.

Gone are the days when an Irish foreign minister could afford to spend three months of the year at UN headquarters in New York, as the late Frank Aiken did, and, although Brian Cowen makes regular visits and takes a keen interest in the issues, our day-to-day interests are looked after by Richard Ryan, who is the head of our mission at the UN.

Ryan believes membership of multilateral bodies such as the UN is essential for small countries as a means of increasing their influence. He also believes Ireland's history has placed it in a unique position to exercise that influence since it joined the UN in 1955.

The lack of an imperial past meant Ireland could approach issues without the same level of self-interest that others might have had. Within a few years, we had an Irishman, Frederick Boland, as president of the General Assembly and had won our first term on the Security Council. Mr Ryan says this reflected the credibility and trust Ireland had won among the member-states.

"We have always been not a large but a very busy delegation engaged on the big issues - development, disarmament, peacekeeping and human rights. These threads run right through since 1955 to today. The Taoiseach told the world when we entered the Security Council that Ireland's track record at the UN over the years would inform our approach to membership of the council."

Ireland topped the poll in the election among the Western European and Other Group at the UN, but it was a hard-fought campaign against Norway and Italy. Why did we bother going to all that trouble? "Ireland, like most members, attaches huge importance to the authority of the UN as their recourse for problems and crises. At the heart of the UN is the moral, legal and political authority of the Security Council," Ryan said.

He is deeply aware of the heavy responsibility carried by council members. "Sometimes when we are in there - in informal consultations, say - you have to realise that this is the final recourse of the peoples of the world, that they have made a great act of faith in your judgment. There are only 15 of you around the table and you have got to get it right, as best you can," he said.

Outlining the Irish approach he said: "Diplomacy is the art of the possible. We don't bring any high-flying notions to the council, and we have no colonial baggage or agenda that the Government needs to assert.

"We want to contribute as best we can to making the UN work efficiently, to work better, and to contribute with whatever skills Ireland might have, as opposed to other members, to making the membership of the council work better together."

He believes Ireland is well-placed to act as an honest broker in difficult situations. "Leaving substance aside, I think procedurally it's reasonable to say that we have found a niche role through being sometimes in the middle ground, helping with drafting, finding ways round obstacles, trying to find the language for an accommodation between other members who are very much separated by substance," he said.

An early successful initiative in January involved the peace process between Ethiopia and Eritrea where Ireland was against prematurely lifting the arms embargo on the former combatants. "We took a robust position here, and one by one other members accrued around us on this policy."

At the end of March, Ireland was heavily involved with the other European members of the council - Britain, France and Norway - in efforts to assemble a sustainable resolution on the Middle East which could have led to the dispatching of an unarmed international UN monitoring group to the region to "monitor transgressions of violence on either side and have them dealt with".

"We were trying to find enough elements that could make it meaningful but that could also be acceptable to the United States, and I believe that we very, very nearly got there," Richard Ryan said.

Events on the ground induced other members of the council to propose a more hardline resolution which was vetoed by the US. But Ryan points out that the Irish resolution is still there - "in the freezer".

Ryan himself was chosen by the Security Council to head its Angola sanctions committee aimed at forcing the UNITA faction led by Dr Jonas Savimbi to engage politically with the MPLA Government rather than by military means.

In the case of the Iraqi sanctions, Ireland seeks to minimise the suffering inflicted on ordinary people: "We have made it clear in the council repeatedly and our Minister has made it clear that we look to a much more streamlined sanctions regime," he explained.

What Ryan describes as Ireland's "relative lack of vested interests" also helps it to play a constructive role in attempts to restore peace and stability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where a civil war has led to vast numbers of casualties - estimates run as high as 2-1/2 million dead.

The deputy head of our UN mission, David Cooney, is a member of a Security Council delegation travelling to the troubled Great Lakes region of Africa later this month to try to advance the peace process.

Already Ryan and his team are working flat-out, and this will continue until the end of the two-year term. It is too early to say precisely what range of issues will come up when Ireland presides in October, but Ryan is clear about one thing: "Our theme will be efficiency."