The United Nations Security Council should be enlarged to 25 members from the current 15 to make it more representative, the Taoiseach said yesterday. Mr Ahern also said the use of the veto by the five permanent members should be re-examined, and he renewed his offer of Irish political and diplomatic assistance in the resolution of ethnic conflicts.
The Taoiseach, in New York for the UN Millennium Summit, was addressing the Foreign Policy Association on "Ireland in the Wider World".
The Security Council remained the key forum in which the international community could act cohesively to end conflicts, he said. As a candidate for election to a temporary seat on the council this year, Ireland had a special interest in seeing its effectiveness improved.
At present, the US, Russia, China, France and Britain have a veto on action over substantive issues, but Mr Ahern said this impeded the council's effectiveness. New permanent members should not be given the right of veto, he said. "What a contribution to meaningful reform it would be if the five permanent members were to give up their veto rights also." Ireland had a "long and proud" record of service in UN peacekeeping, beginning in the Middle East in 1958. "We have also paid a heavy price in terms of lives lost in the service of the international community," Mr Ahern said. Today, Irish troops were among "the most sought-after" for UN missions.
"Our future contribution to UN peacekeeping will, of course, take into account the changing and more complex nature of peacekeeping, which involves additional tasks such as humanitarian assistance, the protection of human rights and civilian police work. Ireland is already playing its part in these new types of missions through participation in UN-authorised international missions in the Balkans and in East Timor," he said.
In a lengthy section devoted to the Belfast Agreement, Mr Ahern renewed an offer made in his speech last Wednesday to use the experience of the negotiations to help, "in however modest a way", in the resolution of other conflicts.
This offer was being made in the context of the support shown by the international community in bringing about the agreement, especially the "truly extraordinary" contribution of President Clinton.
"In making such an offer, I am fully conscious that no two conflicts are entirely the same, that each has its own context and distinctive characteristics. In terms of conflict resolution, there is no sense in which one size fits all," he said.
The Taoiseach emphasised that aspects of some other conflicts did carry parallels to the Irish experience.
"I am thinking in particular of conflicts which involve majority/minority interaction and where the identities of either or both sides carry an external dimension. It would be a source of the greatest satisfaction to us if the Good Friday Agreement could serve as a model which could be drawn on, in any way, in the resolution of some of these conflicts. The provision of such assistance, should it be sought, would fit very much into our overall approach to Ireland's role in the wider world," he said.
Referring to current difficulties in Northern Ireland, he said: "Given the deep-seated nature of the conflict we are addressing, it was entirely to be expected that the transition to a new era of peace would not be instantaneous and that there would be setbacks along the way. The frequency of killings stemming from the conflict has hugely reduced in recent years, but they have not been totally eliminated. One life lost is one too many and a matter of the deepest sorrow and regret."
Reflecting on the history of Irish foreign policy, Mr Ahern recalled that Eamon de Valera, in his capacity as president of the League of Nations, said on the eve of the second World War: "All history tells us that, in the long run, to be just is to be truly wise . . . we seem unable to apply the lesson." De Valera went on to appeal for measures to make the League of Nations more effective.
"A commitment to the ideals and objectives of the United Nations has been at the heart of Ireland's approach to international relations since we joined the organisation in 1955. The UN, with its near-universal membership, which gives it a unique legitimacy, must remain the central forum for discussion and action on global issues," Mr Ahern said.
Ireland fully supported the process of reform the UN had embarked upon under the leadership of the Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan.
Referring to his recent announcement of a fourfold increase in Irish development aid within seven years, the Taoiseach said: "Our ability to make such a decision crystallises the transformation that has taken place in Irish society and the Irish economy over the last two decades. We have now unprecedented prosperity in Ireland, but we remain a deeply concerned and caring people."