The recent nuclear tests in India and Pakistan have put intolerable pressures on the world's only international bulwark against the spread of nuclear weapons, the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Nuclear disarmament analysts have warned that the treaty is close to collapse. Those outside the treaty provisions, such as India, are seeking a new nuclear status within it, but this in turn could cause a renewed interest in nuclear weaponry among so-called threshold states, leading to unchecked proliferation.
It is into this unstable context that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, yesterday launched his New Agenda Coalition, a group of like-minded countries anxious to renew world interest in pursuing full nuclear disarmament.
Joining him at the launch were the ambassadors of each of the cosponsor countries involved in the initiative, Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa and Sweden. There were similar launches yesterday in the capitals of each of these countries.
Together the foreign ministers jointly released a declaration, "A Nuclear-Weapons-Free World: the need for a new agenda". They hope that the declaration will become a full United Nations resolution, up for discussion and debate at the General Assembly in New York in September.
Government officials were reluctant to take sole claim for the initiative, pointing out that it was co-sponsored. It "grew out of close ongoing contacts with the other countries", a spokesman said.
A specialist on international disarmament negotiations, Ms Rebecca Johnson, a director of the London-based Acronym Institute, gives Ireland full credit for getting the New Agenda Coalition under way, however.
"I have know about it for over a month and it emanated from Ireland," she said yesterday. "It was Ireland that went out and met the other nations. It predated India's and Pakistan's test explosions but it was acknowledging the disarmament opportunities that were being squandered by the main nuclear powers."
Mr Andrews pulled no punches at his press briefing yesterday.
"The Non-Proliferation Treaty is under direct threat," he said. Damage was being caused by "the complacency of the nuclear weapon states", which had made "meagre and pitiful" efforts towards commitments originally made by them when signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Mr Andrews was returning to an "Irish foreign policy legacy" in pursuing the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. The treaty was an Irish initiative launched in 1958 by then Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Frank Aiken.
It was agreed in 1961 and has since been signed by 181 countries. It has provided an effective structure that has helped block the spread of nuclear capability, but new players taking the nuclear stage are threatening its stability.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty established two classes of nuclear performers. There were the Big Five - Britain, China, France, the Russian Federation (then the Soviet Union) and the US - who already possessed nuclear weapons. Then there were signatories who could join only if they rejected development or use of these weapons and promised not to assist in their spread.
Not everyone signed immediately, allowing some countries to pursue weapons development. Others signed without ratifying, again leaving the possibility that nuclear devices could be built.
India and Pakistan achieved the goal of becoming nuclear powers outside the treaty. Israel is also viewed as a "nuclear weapons-capable" state, although it has not declared this status.
Others such as Brazil and Argentina had vigorous weapons programmes, Ms Johnson said, becoming "threshold states", but both agreed to discontinue their efforts and became treaty signatories. Egypt achieved threshold status but also joined the treaty as a non-nuclear state despite developments in Israel.
South Africa developed and exploded a bomb and had a stockpile of six weapons, but then abandoned its nuclear potential, becoming the first and only nuclear-capable state to do so. It is now a treaty signatory.
The former Soviet nations Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan were all nuclear powers immediately after the break-up of the USSR. The Ukraine had one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world, but all three decided to abandon this status, returning the weapons to the Russian Federation and signing the treaty.
The changing nuclear scene has brought these new players into the spotlight, adding a new dynamic to the operation of the treaty. It has amounted to a "seismic shift", Ms Johnson believes, creating changes which are not being recognised by the Big Five.
"The five have not fully grasped that this is a different ballgame," she said. The Indian test detonations had shown that the "nuclear elite" was no longer sustainable.
"It appeared that the treaty, which is the cornerstone for non-proliferation, was being taken for granted by the nuclear weapons states. The results could be the gradual loss of credibility and collapse of the treaty."
India, she said, was now demanding that it be recognised as a nuclear state, but this was not possible under treaty provisions. "The nuclear club had been an exclusive club of five. India is now at the door clamouring to join that club."
Should India receive some recognition as a nuclear state by the five then this could cause threshold and former nuclear states to reconsider their position on treaty alignment.
While there are no known nuclear weapons in Ukraine or South Africa, the ability to produce them will not have gone away. Brazil, Egypt or Argentina could decide to go after any benefits arising from an enlarged nuclear club.
The range of countries supporting this new nuclear initiative is therefore highly significant, Ms Johnson believes. Among its sponsors are both threshold and former nuclear-capable states.
It provides not only a geographical spread but also a regional mix where co-sponsors can press their neighbours for involvement. It also broadens the coalition of countries ready to put pressure on both the club of five and non-NPT states to abandon their nuclear potential and enter into a new accord.