From Department of Foreign Affairs
By: Minister for Foreign Affairs; Micheál Martin
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Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen
This has been quite the four days.
I convened this Forum so that we could embark on a national conversation on Ireland’s international security policy.
Not the only conversation, not a definitive conversation with formal decisions and outcomes; but a starting point, a first cut, an initial airing of the wide range of important and complex issues that together make up our security policy.
We’ve heard from almost 80 people over the four days, with on the ground experience and expertise. I want to thank them for their fantastic contribution to this discussion.
And we have heard from you, the people who have given up your time to come to join us in this discussion.
I’m conscious, though, that in this short time, we have only scratched the surface of hearing the different perspectives, different viewpoints and different lived experiences of all of you in this room, and beyond.
So I want everyone in this room, and everyone watching online, and everyone in this country with an interest and a point of view on any of the issues we have talked about today, to also make a submission through the public consultation process.
We purposely kept the process open for a number of weeks beyond the close of the Forum, so that people could listen to and absorb the discussions and reflect on what they have heard – and then tell us what they think.
I urge you all to do so, through an online submission or through writing to us, before 7 July.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been a busy and intense four days and I am not going to keep you for too much longer.
But let me highlight three things that I have learned from this conversation.
First, all of you here in this room, all of you who were in Galway and Cork - all of you who have listened online, who have protested outside (and sometimes inside!), who have commented in the media - care passionately about this country.
You care passionately about who we are as a people and a country.
About how we live our values and protect our interests through our foreign, security and defence policy; how we keep our people safe and secure; how we imbue all our international engagement with the core values that we hold as a people.
That gives me great hope.
I draw great hope from it.
And it gives me enormous confidence that we, as a country and a people, can make the right choices, and respond in a thoughtful and informed way, to the deeply challenging and unpredictable international environment we face.
We will have different views about exactly how to respond – what we should prioritise and focus on; how we should engage with partners internationally and on what issues; what our membership of the UN, the EU, the OSCE, and our Partnership for Peace relationship with NATO does, or should, mean.
That’s good.
That’s as it should be.
That’s the lifeblood of democracy.
The more debate we have on these issues, the better.
Nobody should fear that debate, or try and close it down.
No one should fear thoughtful analysis, or new ideas, or hearing different viewpoints.
That’s exactly the type of conversation we aimed to have at this Forum.
I believe we succeeded.
And I want to keep that conversation and debate going.
Second, the theme of the interconnected nature of this country has come through in every discussion across the four days.
We are an island, but we are a global island.
Our partnerships and relationships and linkages and interdependencies are baked in to everything that we do, and into all the choices that we make.
Across the many, many different viewpoints and opinions expressed in the four days, I have heard almost no one argue for isolationism.
In my opening address to this Forum, I said that Ireland’s policy of military neutrality did not mean that we should isolate ourselves, or assume we have nothing to learn from, or contribute to, the wider debate about European security.
I think we have tested, and proved, this hypothesis over the last four days.
Yesterday I was at the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg, discussing events in Russia and Ukraine with other EU Foreign Ministers.
We heard from Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, who joined us by video conference from Kyiv.
Listening to him brought home to me just how unimaginable it would have seemed two years ago that our discussion here today would be taking place amidst a large-scale land war on the continent of Europe.
That we would see the brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia and experience the largest displacement of people across the continent since World War Two.
That homes and schools and sports clubs and communities all over Ireland would be opening their doors to receive almost 90,000 Ukrainians fleeing this appalling conflict.
But that is the reality that we face.
And as a country that wants to be at the heart of Europe - and at the heart of European debates and decision making - this is a reality that we have a responsibility to respond to, just as much as our partners in the Baltic States or in the other EU Member States geographically closer to Ukraine.
Our connections of course are not just with European partners.
So much of the conversation at the Forum has been a reminder that Ireland has been, and should continue to be, at the centre of global efforts to tackle climate change, poverty and hunger, inequality and conflict.
I have been heartened to hear of the pride that so many of you feel in our peacekeeping, our diplomacy, our development work, our support and solidarity to countries across the globe.
That work will continue to be a fundamental, central part of our foreign, security and defence policy.
Third, almost every discussion and every intervention across these four days has been underpinned by a clear and principled commitment to international law and the primacy of the UN Charter.
I have always believed that the multilateral system, with the UN Charter at its heart, remains our strongest protection, and our most important global security asset.
As a militarily neutral country, our security, indeed, our very existence as a sovereign state, relies on the compliance by all nations, however large and powerful, with the rules-based international order.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has been accompanied by its attempts to manipulate and paralyse the international multilateral system.
We can not ignore the reality that Russia’s actions have emboldened those who would like to see a world where might is right, and that size and military power, rather than international law, governs how the world functions.
As we saw with the cyber attack on the HSE, Ireland’s geography and military neutrality did not protect us, and it will not protect us from future attempts.
But this reality is an argument for more investment of our time, our energies, our commitment to multilateralism, not less.
For continuing to take on leadership roles at the UN – as we did on the Security Council in 2021 and 2022 and we are this year in co-facilitating the SDG Summit Declaration;
at the Council of Europe through our Presidency last year;
at the OSCE, where we chair the Human Dimension Committee this year;
and at the International Atomic Energy Agency, where we co-chair the Board of Governors.
For continuing our proud record in peacekeeping and peacebuilding, including through the service of our Defence Forces overseas.
For maintaining our place at the heart of Europe and driving the EU agenda.
For continuing our practical cooperation on capabilities, cyber security, the protection of critical undersea infrastructure, the interoperability of our Defence Forces and other important areas through the Partnership for Peace programme and through the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me finish by saying thank you.
Thank you to all of you for being part of this conversation.
To all of our great moderators and panellists.
To the two departments I have the honour of leading, who have spent months planning for the Forum and who have worked tirelessly throughout the proceedings to make this Forum a success.
Most of all, to our Chair, Professor Louise Richardson, who has presided over proceedings with authority and with grace, and has brought her decades of experience and considerable intellect and knowledge to this process – an enormous thanks.
You have shaped and set the tone of these four days.
I have watched you listen intently to every moment of this conversation.
Your report will be an important contribution to this national conversation that will continue in the months and years ahead. Thank you.
I said when I opened this forum in Cork that discussions on Ireland’s international security policy may sometimes seem esoteric or theoretical, but the implications of our choices are important – important for Ireland and for all of the people that share this precious island.
I hope that these four days have shown that there is nothing theoretical about these issues.
They matter.
Navigating complex choices in an unpredictable world, matters.
Doing that from a baseline of facts and evidence, matters. Doing that in a transparent and open way, matters.
All of us need, together, to be the architects of our international security policy.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh.