IRISH DIPLOMACY:In his UN speech Martin highlighted Irish efforts on development aid, disarmament and conflict resolution, writes Mary Fitzgerald
THE YEAR ends very much as it began for the denizens of Iveagh House with thoughts of how to deliver the Lisbon Treaty uppermost in the minds of those at the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Having being appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs just weeks before the June 12th referendum, Micheál Martin had little time to ease himself into the new brief. Instead he had to hit the ground running, selling the treaty on the airwaves and then later coping with the fallout from its rejection by Irish voters. In recent months, Martin's diary has been a whirl of European capitals as he, along with Taoiseach Brian Cowen, consulted with other member states to piece together a way out of the conundrum brought about by the June vote.
But while Martin's term as minister has so far been coloured by the Lisbon Treaty more than anything else, there were other issues that featured prominently on the foreign affairs agenda this year.
In his freshman address to the UN General Assembly in September, Martin gave a primer on the State's foreign policy priorities, highlighting in particular Ireland's efforts in the areas of overseas development, disarmament, and conflict resolution.
The minister appealed to the gathered delegates to sign a new international convention prohibiting the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster bombs which had been negotiated at a conference in Dublin in May.
Irish diplomats were justifiably proud of the role the State played in drafting the landmark ban and steering it towards adoption, and proud too that Ireland was among the first nations to sign the convention in a ceremony in Oslo in December.
Dáithí Ó Ceallaigh, Ireland's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, described the agreement at the Dublin conference, over which he presided, as "one of the most important things the State has done since independence."
In his UN speech, Martin also highlighted the opening of a new chapter in Ireland's overseas development strategy with the launch of a report recommending ways in which the State can play a leading role in tackling global hunger.
The Hunger Task Force report, the product of more than a year of deliberations by 15 Irish and international development experts including the heads of the World Food Programme and organisations such as Concern and Trócaire, sets out a blueprint for the reorientation of Ireland's aid programme to focus on food insecurity, particularly in Africa.
Launched with much fanfare by Brian Cowen at UN headquarters in New York, the report proposes that Ireland declare the eradication of hunger a cornerstone of its overseas development programme and a key element of its foreign policy.
It also urges the Government to aim towards allocating 20 per cent of its aid budget to alleviating hunger. This target should be achieved, it says, on a phased basis by 2012 in the context of Ireland's commitment to reach the UN target of devoting 0.7 per cent of GNP to overseas development by that date. Aid agencies welcomed the report's recommendations and urged the Government to act swiftly to ensure pledges are turned into action.
With the country in recession, many in the development sector awaited the October budget with some trepidation, expecting a considerable cut to aid spending. That proved not to be the case, with Irish Aid, the Government's overseas development arm, experiencing a relatively minor cut of some €15 million. The overall spend on aid for 2009 will be €891 million, or 0.56 per cent of projected GNP, keeping Ireland on course to meet the 2012 UN target.
Since taking up the aid portfolio in May, Minister of State for Overseas Development Peter Power has repeatedly stressed the importance of what he calls "public buy-in" and support when it comes to Ireland's efforts in helping developing countries lift themselves out of poverty. Given straitened economic circumstances at home and the troubling economic forecast for 2009, this is a refrain we are likely to hear more often in the coming year.
An issue that appeared for the most part to fly under the domestic radar but caused quite a headache for Irish diplomats was the wrangling that led to this year's landmark deal opening nuclear trade between the US and India for the first time in three decades.
The US-India pact was made possible after the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers' Group, of which Ireland is a member, made the historic decision to grant New Delhi an exemption from its rules forbidding nuclear commerce with any country that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Ireland was one of the last countries to hold out against the waiver, but eventually relented when several states, which normally share its position on disarmament and non-proliferation, rowed behind the move following intense lobbying by Washington and EU member states including France and Britain.
Ireland's decision to go along with the deal was a reluctant one, Micheál Martin told an indignant Michael D Higgins, the only politician to raise the issue in the Dáil. The Labour TD and foreign affairs spokesman believes that not only did the exemption for India set a dangerous precedent, weakening the non-proliferation regime and raising the nuclear stakes in south Asia, but it also constituted a betrayal of Ireland's long historical commitment to non-proliferation.
The participation of some 400 Irish soldiers in the UN-mandated EU mission to eastern Chad meant there was a continued focus on the humanitarian crisis there and the interrelated conflict in neighbouring Darfur. Irish Aid stepped up its funding to agencies working with refugees and displaced locals in the region.
The Middle East remained high on the agenda. Micheál Martin was particularly critical of Israel's continued building of illegal settlements in the West Bank during a visit to the region in July and he also expressed concern about the impact of the Israeli separation barrier on Palestinian economic and social development. In December the minister called on the EU to upgrade its relations with the Palestinian Authority in tandem with efforts to boost ties between Europe and Israel.