We are sitting on the 19th floor with the whole world in our hands. That's the theory of it anyway. On paper, the United Nations Security Council is the nearest you will get to a world government or at least an international policing and security board. The Republic has been a Council member since January, so it would be understandable if our diplomats felt, in an unguarded moment, like masters of the universe.
None of the level-headed and intelligent people at our UN mission, on the 19th floor of No 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, on Manhattan's Second Avenue, would be likely to indulge in such a misguided fantasy. In truth, it might be more accurate to say that as a Security Council member you have the whole world on your hands.
It was a famous campaign that preceded our election to the Security Council. Meticulous planning, grim determination, lots of hard work and a soupcon of political skill and cunning combined to produce a stunning victory in the first count, ahead of well-established, oil-rich Norway and the greatest UN election battlers of all, the Italians. It was a robust contest in which it was never quite clear what the opposition would come up with next. The moment of triumph was sweet: Norway got the second of two places, so it was a case of Arrivederci, Italia.
They still talk about that election in diplomatic circles, especially its lighter moments. The head of state of a certain South Seas island, having listened to the campaign pitch from a visiting Irish official, solemnly announced that the entertainment for the evening would be selections from his library of Daniel O'Donnell CDs. This proved (i) that the man had sophisticated and cosmopolitan tastes and (ii) that he was "sound" and his vote could be relied upon.
But that was then; this is now. Campaigning is hard going, but can be fun at times. The really serious bit is shouldering the burdens of office after an election has been won. These burdens are many and varied when it comes to the Security Council, which has the primary responsibility under the UN charter for the maintenance of international peace and security.
The Council is on permanent standby, which means a meeting can be called at any time. Each of the 15 member-states takes its turn in the chair: Ireland was last on the Council 20 years ago and old hands still recall the occasion, during our presidency, when an Irish diplomat had to convene a meeting in the early hours of the morning to discuss Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
If you want to be an effective member of the Security Council you have to "stay ahead of the game". The five permanent members - China, France, Russia, the UK and the US - have been there since the UN was founded in 1945, with a standing bureaucratic and information apparatus. It's not so easy for the rest - the elected 10 - who come on for only two years apiece. Those of a devout religious inclination will be interested to hear that the Irish diplomatic mission starts each day with "prayers". The content, however, is largely secular. The diplomats gather around the square conference table on the 19th floor to discuss forthcoming issues, exchange information and expertise, and plan strategy and tactics.
Today's meeting starts at 8.30 a.m. and all 18 members of the delegation are on time. In the tradition of the English writer, Christopher Isherwood, I am a camera, located unobtrusively by the wall, privately hoping the mandarins will blurt out State or international secrets which I can promptly pass on to the reader. The presence of a reporter is, if not unprecedented, certainly rare at such a gathering, but everyone behaves as if it were an everyday occurrence.
Earth-shattering revelations there are none, but the level of expertise and quality of discussion on a wide range of topics is impressive. The meeting fairly clips along under the chairmanship of Ambassador Richard Ryan, head of the Irish mission, whose networking skills contributed substantially to the Republic's election success. He is flanked by two highly experienced officials, Philomena Murnaghan, deputy permanent representative, and Ambassador David Cooney. Like Ryan, but at a different stage, Cooney was closely involved with Northern Ireland issues, and he will shortly be moving back to Dublin to another key post as political director at the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The title "prayers" is appropriate, because Ryan's style is to make a few introductory remarks on each topic, followed by responses from around the room. It could be Benediction back home or monks at morning assembly before another day working in the field - except that, in this case, the field is the UN complex across the way.
World diplomacy is a non-stop process and, while the mission was sleeping, events were ticking over on the other side of the globe. The overnight news from Indonesian West Timor - like East Timor, an area of special Irish interest - is that light sentences of only 20 months have been imposed by an Indonesian court on six men charged with the brutal murder of three UN workers. Elizabeth McCullough, responsible for monitoring events in Asia, has already sent a message to department headquarters in Dublin to point out there will be an opportunity to raise the issue at a private session of the Security Council later in the morning. The details of the murder are horrific: the victims were stabbed and their bodies dragged into the street and set alight. It all seems a long way from the well-dressed, well-appointed world of East River diplomacy, but it should be the UN's job to ensure we do not ignore the savagery and brutality taking place in many parts of the world. Sure enough, the Irish do attempt to raise the issue later on, hoping for a strong statement of condemnation by the Council, but Russia reportedly blocks the move on the basis that it would be an interference in domestic judicial affairs.
Back at "prayers", everyone has read the media coverage of world events and it is salutary for a journalist to hear the articles parsed and analysed in rapid, ruthless detail. The US has failed to get elected to the UN's Commission on Human Rights for the first time in over 50 years. This is bad news for two reasons. First, from the way the story is presented you would think the US was beaten in a straight fight with one of the "bad boys" of the international community, Sudan. The truth is that Sudan was chosen for a seat on the Commission from a different group of member-states. Secondly, the result is bad news for the Republic, which is running for a seat on the Commission next year in the same group as the US. There were five member-states chasing four seats; now Washington will probably make it six. "It's already a crowded field," someone says. A man who usually has the inside word on what's happening at the UN is Paul Kavanagh, who has returned to the department after 14 years with the world body. Like his colleague, Julian Clare, he served at the Dublin end of the Security Council election campaign; both have now joined the mission in New York.
The Taoiseach is due to make one of his periodic visits to the UN and there is some discussion about his programme. Another issue is what level of political representation there should be at a forthcoming international conference which is close to Drumcree Sunday. Ryan also mentions a letter from another member-state seeking support in an election to one of the UN subsidiary bodies on some reciprocal basis that is not immediately clear (the handwriting on the letter is illegible). "I would not recommend attaching it to any other election," says Margaret Stanley. It is interesting to an outsider how often the contributions include a recommendation one way or the other, reflecting a fair level of autonomy on the part of officials on the ground. At the same time, autonomy is not independence and there is also a good deal of interaction with the various desks and sections, not to mention the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Cowen and, where appropriate, his Minister of State, Liz O'Donnell - back at departmental headquarters in Dublin's Iveagh House. "We are the just the camel's head," is how Ryan colourfully puts it to me. "But there is a lot of camel".
At a special briefing after "prayers", the mission's military advisers, Col Pat O'Sullivan and Lt-Col Tadhg Crowe explain the complexities of the security situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Both the Army and our national folk-memory still recall Ireland's dramatic and at times tragic intervention in the Congo in the early 1960s, which left 26 of our soldiers dead. Having joined the UN as late as 1955, we were new to the world stage and our eagerness to do the right thing was not matched by a commensurate amount of experience. It is touching now to recall that the Irish boys were first sent out in bull's wool uniforms which must have been hell to wear in the equatorial climate.
There is major trouble in the Congo again and the international community is looking at ways to ease the situation without getting trapped, literally or politically, in the jungle. The factions in the conflict include what Col O'Sullivan calls the "genocidaires" of Rwanda. It is an unfamiliar word to me, but what better and more chilling term for the murderers of men, women and children? He also makes the pertinent point that "the troubled regions of the world are awash with small arms and the DRC is no exception".
As many as two-and-a-half million people may have died in the fighting there since 1998. There is a shaky ceasefire but no easy permanent solution in sight. With the Security Council about to embark on a peace and diplomacy mission to the region, a preparatory "retreat" on the Congo with the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, is planned for the following weekend at an old Rockefeller property in upstate New York. Since David Cooney will be the Irish representative on the mission, he is set to attend the retreat. Ryan, too, is heavily involved in the woes of Africa as head of the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against the rebel UNITA faction in Angola. In addition to political matters, there is a brief discussion about malaria and the sometimes negative psychological effects of preventive medication, as well as the fearsome risk of taking nothing at all.
Somewhere amid all these weighty debates and discussions, Ryan finds time for a more pleasant duty: the signing of diplomatic relations between the Republic and Barbados. A Caribbean photographer is on hand to record the moment when Ryan and the Barbados ambassador, June Clarke, put pen to paper. Since it is too early for anything stronger, the event will be toasted with non-alcoholic beverages.
"I would very much like to be Ireland's first ambassador to Barbados," says Ryan, with a twinkle in his eye. The texts are signed and the photographs taken. "Okay," says Ryan. "Let's hit the orange juice."