 Good afternoon. My name is David O'Sullivan. I'm the Director General of the Institute of International and European Affairs and I'm very honored and pleased to be able to welcome you to this IIEA event which is part of the Global Europe project supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and this project aims to address, analyze and communicate to a wider public the debate on the EU's role in the world and Ireland's role in the multilateral order with a particular focus on Ireland's term as an elected member of the UN Security Council which began on 1 January 2021 and comes to an end this month December 22. We're absolutely delighted and honored today to be joined by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defense Simon Coveney who's been generous enough to take time out of his schedule to speak with us on this subject today. I'd like to thank the minister as well as the colleagues from the Department of Foreign Affairs who have contributed to the UN side of the Global Europe project including Ambassador Geraldine Bernaysen who's now the Ambassador of Washington, Ambassador Fergal Meithan, Deputy Secretary General and Political Director Sonja Highland and UN Policy Director and Director of the UN Security Council Task Force Elizabeth McCullough. Minister will speak to us today for about 20 minutes or so and then we'll go to question and answers with both the people here present in North Great Georgia Street and the audience online. If you're joining online you will be able to join the discussion using the Q&A function on Zoom with whom I think with which I think we're all now boringly familiar and please feel free to send your questions in throughout the session as they occur to you and we'll come to them once the minister has finished his presentation and we will be collecting questions from our in-person audience as well. A reminder that today's presentation and question and answer are both on the record and please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IIEA. We're also live streaming this morning this afternoon's discussion so a very warm welcome to all of you joining us on YouTube. I now briefly introduce the minister who hardly needs any introduction but of course Simon Kovni-TD is the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defense. He's also Deputy Leader of Finigale. He previously served as thornishler from November 2017 to June 2020 and Minister for Housing Planning and Local Government as well as Minister for Agriculture Food and Marine. He was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defense on the 27th of June 2020 and he represents as we all know the Cork South Central constituency. Minister we're delighted to have you and please the floor is yours. Excellencies ladies and gentlemen thanks for taking the time to be with us today. As ever I am delighted to be here in the IIEA's beautiful home this afternoon. It's a lot warmer inside than it is out but today the 6th of December marks 100 years since the Irish Free State was established. One of the first acts of the Free State was to seek membership of the League of Nations. The principles we articulated 100 years ago on joining the League of Nations continue to inform our approaches to foreign policy today. The belief that countries large and small have an equal right to live in peace and to contribute to international peace and security. The belief that all people have the right to live in dignity. They have their human rights and fundamental freedoms respected. That inclination to look outwards to work with others to be part of agreed global systems and structures that shape and regulate how we act as nation states remains at the core of our foreign policy today. It is why we campaigned to join the Security Council once again and this afternoon I want to reflect on some of our achievements on the Council as well as some of the challenges that many of you will be familiar with that we faced also. Our term has been guided by three principles. Building peace, strengthening conflict prevention and ensuring accountability. We campaigned on those three themes and we tried to deliver on the Security Council as best we could on those three themes also. These principles came not only from our own foreign policy priorities but also from the Council's mandate itself. The UN Charter confers on the Council the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. But the Council can only do so but the Council can only do this successfully if it invests in preventing conflict as well as solving it. And if it contributes to holding the perpetrators of violations of international law to account as well as reacting to the consequences of that. So to take stock 100 weeks into a 104-week term have we succeeded in trying to deliver on some of those objectives? There's no doubt in my mind that we have had a sustained and positive impact. Let's take peace building for example. One of the biggest challenges we've seen through our experiences as peacekeepers and through working with the UN in many post-conflict situations is that civilians are often left vulnerable when peacekeepers depart. These experiences convinced us that we needed a new framework to deal with the transition from peacekeeping missions to longer-term peacebuilding projects. This is why we brought forward a resolution on peacekeeping transitions. This resolution UN Security Council 2594 creates a framework that prioritizes the protection of civilians and ensures that certain conditions are in place before peacekeepers leave. The anonymous agreement of the resolution by the Council members last September was a moment of significant success and delivery for Ireland. It will have a real impact on the day-to-day lives of civilians living in fragile and conflict-affected states long after Ireland has left the Council. In fact, it was the first policy-based resolution that Ireland ever succeeded in getting agreed. There was a second resolution that we got agreed but it was country-based rather than policy-based. We've also shaped the mandates of every peacekeeping mission from Lebanon to Mali to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Syria, bringing the experience from our defense forces and the lessons that we've learned of what does and doesn't work on the ground. We've taken responsibility for negotiating specific peacekeeping mandates. Last month saw the unanimous renewal of the UN mandate for Operation Althea, the EU-led mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We steered the course carefully through difficult negotiations to ensure that mission's vital work was allowed to continue and we've insisted that women need to be central to building sustainable and inclusive peace. In partnership with Mexico, we've championed the full meaningful and equal participation of women through chairing the Council's working group on Women, Peace and Security. We've ensured that Council members heard detailed reporting and analysis of the situations on the ground for many women and girls from different parts of the world impacted by conflict. Our second guiding principle was strengthening conflict prevention. To put it mildly, this is not an easy task. The causes and drivers of conflict are numerous, they're complex, they're interlinked and often they are intractable as conflict itself is. We focused on the areas that we thought we could make the biggest difference, where we saw most glaring gaps. One of the most urgent of those gaps was on climate and security. We worked through 2021 to bring what would have been the first ever horizonal resolution on this issue to the Council table. It would have ensured the Council took account of the impact of climate as a driver and as an accelerator of conflict and a threat multiplier across all of its work. As co-chair with Niger, of the Council's working group on climate and security, we patiently built an evidence base for that resolution. Step by step, maybe somebody doesn't agree with that, but trust me it was worthwhile. Step by step, we worked with others and we convinced others. Although Russia ultimately vetoed that resolution last December, the text was co-sponsored by 113 UN member states, which I think is a significant endorsement of the work that we were trying to do. Our work has provided the building blocks for other Council members now to advance this crucial issue in the years ahead. Nowhere has the crucial importance of accountability been more obvious than in Russia's brutal aggression against Ukraine. We've used our seat in the Security Council to push back against Russian disinformation, to demand that Russia end its illegal war and to push for accountability for gross violations of international law and humanitarian law. While Russia used its veto to prevent the Council from taking substantive action, Ireland has spearheaded a range of other initiatives across the multilateral system focused on accountability. Most notably, Russia has been suspended from the UN Human Rights Council. The General Assembly has passed a number of resolutions by very large margins, demanding Russia immediately halt its aggression against Ukraine, withdraw its troops and commit to peaceful negotiation. The limits of the Council's effectiveness in preventing or intervening early in conflict situations mean that we have spent much time dealing with the impact and consequences of conflict. One of the most important files for me was preserving the agreement on humanitarian access into Syria. What was at stake here was the continued flow of humanitarian assistance to over four million people in northwest Syria, delivered by a cross-border humanitarian operation from southern Turkey in a crossing called Bab Halawa. I visited that border crossing on two separate occasions. I sat with the people who worked with these communities on a day-to-day basis. They could not have been clearer as to what the end of this agreement would have meant for the men, women and in particular the children, who rely almost completely on international humanitarian support, four million people. I gave my personal commitment that we would do everything in our power to keep that crossing open despite extremely challenging dynamics in the Council in our efforts to do that. Working closely with Norway, we managed to broker an agreement, an agreement that has been accepted by all and has kept that crossing open for now at least. Against the odds the Council renewed the mandate for a cross-border mechanism last July and again in July 2021 and again in July of this year. Sometimes our work was less about advancing priorities and more about simply holding the line. I could give numerous examples where Ireland has successfully preserved language on accountability, on human rights, respect for international humanitarian law, on climate and on the participation of women. Maintaining language in a resolution may not seem much of an achievement but I cannot overstate the extent of the pushback against long-established language norms and principles that we have seen in our two years on the Council. And what the Council says and the language that it uses does matter. When the Council decides to take action, its words have weight in international law. Our time as Security Council has historically coincided with some pivotal moments in world history. Did the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the outbreak of the Falklands War during our term in 1981 and 1982, the attack of 9-11 during our 2001 and 2002 term or the events that transpired in Afghanistan and Ethiopia and Ukraine during these past two years. We've been faced with challenges that no amount of careful planning could possibly have predicted. When faced with crisis on the scale that we have seen in the last two years hundreds of thousands killed in Ethiopia and extreme violations of human rights in international humanitarian law, the rights of millions of women and girls and of minority communities denied across Afghanistan and a brutal and illegal invasion by Russia of Ukraine with civilian infrastructure decimated and an estimated 14 million people displaced, more than half of them into the EU. Ireland has drawn again and again from our three guiding principles. We have worked closely with African partners on the Council to highlight the humanitarian impact of the conflict in Tigray and indeed other parts of Northern Ethiopia. From early 2021, we led the Council's response to calling for an end to hostilities and for unhindered humanitarian access and restoration of basic services. We consistently demanded accountability for human rights abuses and for support to the African Union-led negotiations. The role of direct mediation has fallen largely on African partners and rightly so. The Council, however, had a key role in shining a light on the situation at an early stage to make sure the international community continued to focus on what was happening there. It will now have an equally important role in supporting the implementation of a peace agreement that we hope can hold. None of our work on the Council would have been possible without the partnerships that we've built, that we've maintained and that we've nourished. Partnerships with other governments, with the UN system, with civil society partners, with analysts and journalists and academic partners, with the Iraqis and ultimately with the Irish public. Partnership is always essential in diplomacy, irrespective of how correct your principles or how brilliant your analysis or how hard working your team, no country can achieve its foreign policy goals on its own. It becomes all the more essential at times when geopolitical tensions are high as they have been for the last two years. Such tensions are not new, of course. The Council has faced entrenched positions and strong disagreements before. Nonetheless, the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation by a permanent member of the Council has brought a new level of strain in the relationships between the five permanent members. In this environment, our role as an elected member of the Council as a country that is clear, I hope, in its principles, committed to the UN Charter and to multilateralism, becomes particularly important. I've spoken about the partnerships and the Council that allowed us to achieve important progress with Mexico on women, peace and security, with Niger on climate and security, with Norway on the Syria humanitarian file. But investing in partnership and in dialogue goes well beyond that. During our term, I visited and met with my counterparts in Ukraine, Moldova and Turkey, in Saudi Arabia, UAE, China, Iran, Somalia, Kenya, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territory, as well as, of course, London, Paris and Washington. I've consulted extensively with my EU counterparts and continue to do so. I've spent many hours with senior UN officials, understanding what action they need from the Council in order to do their essential work, and how Ireland can help them do it. I visited the border crossing between Turkey and Syria twice, meeting with civil society and local leaders there. I've also met regularly with Irish civil society partners. Indeed, the IIEA has been a key partner in this aspect of our work through hosting our Security Council stakeholder forum. Partnerships have enabled us to get some things done. They've also enabled us to speak truth to power at times. Ireland brought the voices of 16 female civil society briefers to the Council table during our presidency in September 2021, a record number for any Council presidency to date. Not every Council member was comfortable with that. Somewhere around the table may prefer not to hear what council action or inaction means for the people most directly affected by it. But it is the reality, how conflict impacts the lives of women, men, and children that matters. The reality that I saw during my visit to Butia in May of this year was plain to see. A reality to which we bore witness, to rebut Russia's attempts at the Council to portray reports of mass graves as a fabrication. The reality that I experienced in Odessa in September to see the Black Sea grain initiative in operation, a reality we used to highlight the catastrophic impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on global food supply in many parts of the world. While this may sound like a summation of our work, our term of course is not quite over yet. Three weeks, four days, 13 hours, and counting. As I speak, we are leading intensive negotiations in New York in partnership with the US this time to introduce a Security Council resolution to ensure that legitimate humanitarian actors are not hindered in delivering humanitarian aid. This resolution has the potential to transform the Council's sanctions regime. It's essentially a wording that would be part of shaping any new sanctions regime that would be put in place to make sure that humanitarian access and humanitarian aid isn't disrupted by that. Retaining the Council's ability to use sanctions as an effective tool against violations of international law and terrorism while comprehensively dealing with the unintended humanitarian consequences of those conflicts. We're also busy charting a course for our future engagement at the UN. We will continue to be guided by our three principles, building peace, preventing conflict, and ensuring accountability. We will continue to strengthen the link between peacekeeping and peacebuilding and to ensure the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women in all aspects of peace and security. We will intensify our efforts to address conflict-induced hunger. We will address the interlinking factors that drive conflict, particularly climate change, with a focus on the Horn of Africa. We will continue to promote the rule of law, including by standing for election to the Human Rights Council for the 2027 to 2029 term. We will promote accountability and actively pursue the cases brought to the ICC, the ICJ, and the European Court of Human Rights in relation to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. We will support Palestine in its efforts to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on ongoing Israeli occupation. The partnerships we have developed while on the Security Council will continue to be crucial in all of this work. Despite its challenges and undoubtedly its flaws, the UN Security Council remains a pivotal institution at the heart of the multilateral system. We cannot address global challenges, conflict, climate change, food insecurity without it and its action. And we have seen firsthand, with political will and with partnership, multilateralism can deliver results. So thank you. I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much, Minister, for that overview of just on two years on the Security Council. It shows really the remarkable breath of activity and it's quite difficult to take in the scale of the activity. So congratulations to you and the team for managing that. And today we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the state. I'm not sure that the founding fathers at that time could have envisaged that an Irish Foreign Minister would stand up and describe that breath of activity by Ireland as a member of the Security Council. So it's a remarkable achievement. You ended on a note of optimism about the importance of multilateralism. On the other hand, in your speech, you pointed out very clearly the challenge which is put to the whole multilateralism is generally not having an easy time, whether it's the WTO or other organizations and particularly the UN and you pointed to the paradox of a permanent member of the Security Council launching an invasion and a war on a sovereign state in the labor and breach of the charter. What is your sense of how people believe that we can deal with this kind of situation and still make the the United Nations the force for good that we would all like to see it? Well, first of all, I still believe that the UN is a force for good and I've seen that firsthand. If you take the Black Sea grain initiative, for example, Antonio Guterres himself invested an enormous amount of both time and currency in working with Turkey, working with Russia and working with Ukraine to broker a deal there that is facilitating close to a million tons of grain a week to get out of ports like Odessa. To other parts of the world. So, you know, you can focus on the negatives and there are many. I mean, we have a Security Council member, a military superpower deliberately targeting civilians on a daily basis and not even trying to disguise that. Yes, they are they are talking in Security Council in the way that they do about global peace and security issues. I mean, in many ways, it's a very fundamental contradiction that undermines the credibility of the Security Council in quite a fundamental way. But having said that, it's the structure we have. And what Ireland has tried to do as a country that doesn't threaten anybody as a country that isn't a threat to anybody, given our size, given our location, given our history. We have tried to essentially call out the actions of countries, regardless of how big or powerful they are, on the basis of UN resolutions and on the basis of international law. And that is why I have been so vocal and so critical of Russia. Why I've been very clear that Ireland is not neutral in this war, even though we are militarily nonaligned. Many people, you know, describe that as as neutral and that is that that is the position. And it's not going to change, in my view. But that does not mean that Ireland doesn't take sides when we have an absolute justification to do so. And that's why, you know, we've we've committed 3 million euros to the International Criminal Court to make sure that they have the resources needed to gather evidence of potential war crimes or crimes against humanity. It's why we support EU efforts to put some kind of international legal structure in place to try the crime of aggression, because the ICC can't do that. And of course, it's why we've been highly vocal, not just within the EU, but also within the Security Council, within the UN General Assembly, and in other international fora, to try to be a voice for international law, for multilateralism, and for truth as much as we can be. So, so, you know, I hope we can continue to do that. I think that is why Ireland gets elected on Security Council, often against the odds that we we we be Canada. Canada is one of the countries that I'm most fond of. I wish we weren't competing with them. I wish we weren't a few years ago, but we were. But Canada is a very popular country in the Security Council. And for Ireland to get more votes to be on the Security Council, I think says something about how small countries in particular view Ireland in terms of of the voice we have, the consistency of message that I think we have. And, you know, the fact that we're not in anybody's pocket, I think is just by the partnerships we build. I think I hope I hope allows us to be credible and influential at times when when that can be helpful. So, you know, we've we've tried to use that reputation in terms of climate and security in terms of women, peace and security. One of the things I didn't mention in the speech was we we volunteered to take on a very very difficult job in the context of what's called the JCPOA or the Iranian nuclear deal where Ireland effectively was the pen holder on writing a report for the Security Council on the resolution that's relevant to that to that agreement. I was in Tehran twice on that particular issue trying to find a way forward on it. In my view, the world would be a safer place. The JCPOA were in place. And I'm not alone in that view. But but, you know, unfortunately, we haven't made the progress that you would have liked to on that, even though it looked on a number of occasions that we were about to make a breakthrough, not we, but the international system was about to make a breakthrough in that space. So, you know, we've we've tried to take on difficult weighty files as a country that was really had a sole interest in in peace and security, international law, and all the things that I've outlined. We failed on some, we succeeded on others. But I think given the given the tension within the Security Council, the environment to actually make progress made some of those challenges, you know, even more difficult than they might otherwise have been. But it's been an amazing experience for me personally. I think our team, if I might just put this on the record, I think our team in New York have been nothing short of phenomenal. You know, we've effectively had to almost double the size of our team in New York and the UN. It's about 48 people or so in that team for the last two years, some of them locally from the US in terms of support team. But many of them, you know, Irish civil servants, many of them young, ambitious, driven people, you know, who want to make an impact on the global stage. And I think they've done an incredible job in doing that, you know, led by Geraldine for the majority of time and now by Fergal. And often the team just don't get the recognition, I think, back home that they deserve given the rooms that they were operating in and the tension and pressure in many of those conversations. I think they've done an extraordinarily good job in difficult circumstances. Thank you. Before I take a question from the audience, can I, you mentioned the EU and of course, we have 27 EU member states who are in the United Nations. We have one member who has a permanent seat on the Council, the UK, the longer being a member. In many ways, the UN is par excellence, the place where countries interact. How did you experience the coordination EU level and the ability of the EU to act as a cohesive force from time to time while at the same time acknowledging that there are nuances between member states? Yeah, I think that's a good question. You know, I think there are times when EU member states work very closely together in a UN setting. And at times, I think differences in approaches and foreign policy are very exposed. If you take migration, for example, where there are very different perspectives coming from different EU countries. But it's a reminder that we don't live in any United States of Europe. We live in a union that agrees to pull sovereignty in certain areas. Every country has its own foreign policy, but we do agree to work together in a lot of areas. And I think the EU, for example, has been remarkably united in the context of the one Ukraine. I think the EU was remarkably united also in the context of what unfolded in Afghanistan out of Kabul. We got many of our citizens out of Kabul because of the partnerships with other EU countries with the UK. A fantastic partner with us on the ground helping to get Irish people through incredibly complex chaos in the outskirts of Kabul airport, relying on Finland then to actually get places on a plane to get them out. I think that's a really good example of one, the partnership within the EU, but also the partnership between the UK and EU member states, who despite the sort of the public disagreement that we sometimes hear on Brexit issues and so on, it's still a very close relationship when it comes to it on the global stage. So no, I mean, we were close to the UK and the Security Council. We were very close to France too. We were close to the US at times. We worked very closely with African countries and Security Council. Kenya when they were there, Nigeria when they were there. I actually visited President Kinyata and we had a really deep discussion in relation to what was unfolding at the time next door in Ethiopia, which let's not forget is a country that actually Ireland is probably closer to than any other in Africa in the context of our development partnerships over the last 40 years. So yeah, I mean, I think that most of the time we were very conscious that we were an EU member state as well as having an independent voice and we consulted a lot with the European Commission and with other EU foreign ministers and so on. But at times we were driving an agenda because we had a specific responsibility. It's been like having a commissioner. Their job isn't there to look after Ireland. Their job is to be on the European Commission to make sure that this cohesion and we were trying to be a voice for small island developing states in the Pacific, just as we were a voice that I hope was consistent with the EU values in the world. And I think that independence, there's lots of examples of it and sometimes that creates a bit of tension on certain issues. We've been a very strong voice on Palestine every month. There are some countries in the EU who have a very different take on that. But I'd like to think we are consistent and hopefully convinced in terms of the arguments that we make. Thank you. Turning maybe to the audience now, I think Paddy Smith there. Paddy. Minister, thank you. I had two questions. You touched on the JCPOA, just a sense of where you think that's going. I'd be interested in. And the main point I wanted to make was about the veto and the reform program, reform agenda, if you like, for the internal structures of the Security Council. And the fact that it does appear that there's absolutely no progress at all doesn't even appear to be discussions about the reform of the, I think, despite the fact that Article 273 says that countries that are being discussed and Security Council resolutions shall, quote, abstain from voting. Russia not only doesn't abstain from voting in vetoes. And this is really, it's leading to a real sense out there, ordinary people that the Security Council is completely toothless. I just wonder where you think that's that discussion is going. Well, I think a lot of that criticism is justified, I have to say. I mean, I think the veto fundamentally undermines the credibility of the Security Council, particularly when it's abused, which it is far too often. So I mean, my views on the veto would be pretty clear. I don't think there should be a veto available to P5 states. But I'm also a realist. Don't believe that the veto power is going to end anytime soon. And so I think at least we should be continuing to try to campaign and lobby for restrictions around how a veto could be used. A number of years ago, before Ireland was on Security Council, France tried to push this concept along with others, that actually the veto would be restricted in cases of breaches of international humanitarian law. And so it would be it would be limited in terms of its use. We would certainly support that. We were supportive of Lichtenstein, ironically, talking about the power of small countries. Lichtenstein brought forward a resolution, which we worked with them on, as did others, to try to respond to this veto frustration. And now if a P5 member state uses the veto, they have to go and explain themselves to the General Assembly. So it doesn't prevent the use of the veto, but it certainly shines a spotlight on its use. And if you like, it's a it's a political accountability of sorts. So if Russia or if the US or if China or if, you know, UK or France or the UK or France, very, very rarely if ever use the veto. If they do use the veto, they actually have to go and explain the reason for it to 292 or 193 countries. So I think that that is helpful, but doesn't solve the problem. But it was certainly worth supporting. But I mean, I have to be honest, you know, I mean, trying to get agreement at the moment, even on things that you would think are directly related to the provision of peace and security is difficult because of the tension between between P5 member states. Sometimes that tension extends to the to the other 10 as well. So to get something as fundamental agreed as a removal of the veto in a reform agreement, I just think that's not realistic at the moment, or not even close to so. But I think we need to keep trying. But I accept the frustration and the credibility gaps there. And I can tell you the frustration in the UN system at their inability to be able to really do anything to to stop or slow down the the the invasion of of Ukraine by Russia was really palpable. And instead, the UN impact was very much limited to humanitarian corridors to negotiating exit routes out of cities under bombardment bombardment. It was in the end focused on the, you know, on getting grain out of out of Ukraine as opposed to actually peace negotiations and so on. So and at one point, you know, UN representatives weren't even welcome in Moscow. So, you know, I think that says a lot. But but then you look at some of the other conflicts where the UN has been more impactful. And I think you've got you've got to keep believing because it is it is the most powerful multilateral mechanism that we have. And I think we should we should work to to try and make it work. On the other question on the JCPOA, look, my concern with the JCPOA as we were inching towards what looked like there was going to be an agreement. Because I think the Biden administration were very responsible in relation to trying to find a way forward on this. I mean, they had their red lines, but they were reasonable. Iran was very skeptical as to whether this was a, you know, a genuine effort at getting getting an agreement. And of course, other countries like Germany, France and the UK, I think have been very constructive and very patient in terms of of trying to to get this deal back into shape. My fear was that that other issues would make it that could, you know, that could impact on relationships could undermine the politics of trying to get this this issue agreed, you know, in a in a US Congress setting or wherever. And clearly, I think what's unfolded in Ukraine and, you know, the evidence of Ukrainian provided drones that have been targeting civilians. And of course, the, you know, the protests and how they've been been been responded to with with a lot of violence from police in Iran has has made a lot of this more difficult, I think. But I think all hope is not lost. But but I wouldn't be as confident as I would have been, if you asked me this question, six or eight months ago, or certainly a year ago, when it looked like there was going to be a deal. I think it's a much more difficult proposition now, I have to say. Ambassador Johnson. Thank you, David. And thank you very much, Minister. Congratulations on today's anniversary. And congratulations also on Ireland's term on the Security Council. It's been, I think, the hardest council we've had since the Cold War, probably in terms of those tensions and divisions. And I think you've navigated a really skillful course. I was going to ask you about about the future. And it builds a bit on on padi's comment. We had to go in 2005 at trying to circumscribe the veto. And it was clear that a majority of permanent members weren't up for it. We looked to be in a world now where the Russians and perhaps others will use the veto in an even more abusive way. Back in 1999, NATO took action without Security Council, explicit authorization in relation to the crisis in Kosovo. Your party has talked about perhaps moving away in domestic terms in the triple lock. Do you see the future as one in which regional organisations might feel compelled to take action of various sorts without UN Security Council resolutions? Or does that get us into a world where the credibility of the Security Council and the UN system is further challenged? Thank you. That's a hell of a question. But I think a very valid one. I think there are moments when countries working together are compelled to act. If there's a scale of human misery or humanitarian consequences that require a response, and we see that in terms of development partnerships all the time. The response to the unfolding human crisis on the Horn of Africa at the moment requires an urgent response, and which we're trying to respond to in some other countries are too. Just on the triple lock, I've made the point that actually the triple lock has served as well, in my view. It's never actually, certainly in my time anyway, I can never remember an instance where we have been blocked from doing what we wanted to do, whether that was sending a ship to the Mediterranean on humanitarian mission, whether it was in Mali, whether it was in in Unda for Unifil or so. And I think it's been a reassurance for many people that when we send troops abroad, it's with the UN mandate. And that brings with it, I think, a reassurance that this is a global effort that everybody is in agreement on. And that protects Irish neutrality and military non-alignment. I think, though, that the world has changed in recent months. And the idea that actually a mandate could be blocked by a P5 member state for a reason that is not based on international peace and security, and therefore Ireland would not be able to be part of a peacekeeping mission that we believe we should be involved, I think, is a problem. So, that element of the triple lock was a sort of, in an academic sense, was a problem, but in fact, this wasn't before. Whereas now, like if you take the renewal of the mandate, for example, in Bosnia and the Prince of Government, a lot of people expected that when Russia may veto the extension of that mandate. And if that were to happen, would that be reasonable that Ireland would be prevented from sending people to a peacekeeping mission? Because Russia, for whatever reason, decided they didn't want to allow it. So, I think we need to think about the triple lock. I think we still need to have the reassurance in our decision making that Ireland is thinking independently and is acting in a way that's consistent with certainly the spirit of the UN mandate or something like that. But that's something I'd like to explore with our Foreign Affairs Committee, because I'd like to get all party agreementers close to all party agreementers like cannabis, because this will impact on future governments and so on. So, that's where we are on that. It's sort of in discussion. And then, you know, do I envisage a situation where the EU, for example, could collectively act? Well, I mean, certainly we are putting, I think, the capacity together to have a rapid response capacity. But I think if Ireland is going to be part of that in the future, we will want to, if we're deploying troops abroad, we will want to have those safeguards around that decision making to reinforce in the public's mind that actually we're not signing up to a military alliance that can suck us into something that we don't want to be part of. And that we are making our own decisions, and on the basis of the merits of those decisions in a way that's consistent with international law and UN resolutions and that we're welcomed by a host country and so on. So, I think, but I, you know, unfortunately, I think this war has undermined the coherence within the Security Council in quite a fundamental way. And unfortunately conflicts and crises are going to keep coming. So, we have to find a way of allowing the Security Council to respond in a more acceptable way than is currently possible, I think, to many of those. And the violin I'd say in this is that, you know, most crises that happened happen internationally do involve the interests of P5 members. And it's not just Russia. You know, it could be other countries too. You know, the US is involved in a lot around the world, so is China, so the UK and France. You know, so today it's Russia, you know, but in the future it could be, it could be another P5 state that has an interest in blocking interventions that may be necessary to protect people. And I really think we have to find a way as an international community of trying to deal with that. And you know, I think this will be done in small steps, by the way. So, and one of those, one of the good examples of that is what we're trying to do as we speak today in New York. We're trying to get to ensure that when sanctions are imposed, that there's essentially a humanitarian carve-out always in sanctions, and that countries are forced and the UN system is forced to facilitate that in the future. And you know, that's a small bite of the challenge, but it's worth pursuing because I think it's deliverable. Whereas I think the big change that many of us would like is probably not deliverable in the short term in terms of preventing the use of the veto. Thank you, minister, for sharing with us your evaluation on the achievements of Ireland and the legacy left. Of course, you still have some, some two weeks to go, but I want already to congratulate you and your terrific team in the UN. I was privileged to work with them in a previous position, so they really, they did a tremendous, tremendous job. You were referring to the importance of partnerships. And although David partly stole my question, I wanted to elaborate or ask you to elaborate a bit more on the partnerships amongst European Union members within the Security Council. You were discussing earlier on more broadly what you can do in the UN, but I know there is that kind of specific cooperation. How do you evaluate it? Its strengths is added value. How do you see develop that kind of cooperation? When, for instance, there will be few members, European Union members in the Security Council. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think there's a lot more focus on that now. Ironically, actually, since the UK left the European Union, there's more focus now on EU coherence within Security Council, because when the UK was there, France and the UK were both on, you know, the current members, they were both EU member states. They were both briefing, you know, leaders and foreign ministers and so on in the various different structures. Now there are less EU member states in the Security Council. So the responsibility for for more discussion between countries in New York and in Brussels and elsewhere, I think, is important. And you often see that actually, you know, in the buildup to General Assembly Week, for example, when we actually have a Foreign Affairs Council in New York where the ministers talk about what are the priorities for the week through the UN system and so on. And I think that coherence is there, but every now and again, it fractures, you know, on on certain issues. And that's that's okay too. But I think, certainly if you're a small country like Ireland, you can't afford to be not listening to other EU member states. And I think Estonia, for example, who were there before we were, did a really good job as well. They focused on certain areas where they had niche credibility around cybersecurity and so on. And I think brought an awful lot of other EU countries with them in terms of some of their efforts. What I would say as well is the final thing I'd say on maybe on Ukraine and as people have more questions on it. But I think, I think the war on Ukraine has actually brought the European Union much closer together on foreign, foreign defense and security questions. You know, the discussion and the depth of that discussion, you know, the sharing of of intelligence and information, the agreement to support each other in terms of investment in defense and so on. This is a conversation that certainly Ireland has never been involved in to the extent that we are now, even though we're still out of the NATO system. And that's respected too, which which we appreciate. But I think the focus on common defense and security discussion in the European Union is certainly more coherent than I've ever seen before. And that translates into into Security Council statements and involvement as well. And we're running out of time. So there's quite a number of questions. I'm going to, if you agree, minister take two at a time to perhaps facilitate moving more quickly so that everyone try and give you shorter answers. Thank you, minister. And I'll try to be sure to my questions. Mary Van Liesow from Goal. Congratulations echoing that for the really robust and significant legacy that I think you're going to to be able to be proud of. We saw it every day in our work, something like the peace transition, the peaceful transitions resolution was hugely impactful, something in Sudan and South Sudan in those terms. But my question is going to be on Syria. We were so grateful for the really in-depth and deep commitment of your team to seeing that that resolution was carried to those humanitarian goods could get over that border last year. And you know that there's another border resolution in January. So my simple question is going to be, can you call that? Can you give us a sense of where you think that's going to go? But my more, I think related question to the concerns in the room are, is there an interest in the UN Security Council more broadly and resolving or trying to play a role in shaping that conflict and bringing it to an end? The people of Syria are being legal in that those four million people they've had it now for going on 15 years. So is there a broad intent to resolve this conflict rather than just simply a resolution by resolution? Thank you. And Karen, perhaps, then Karen, thanks for the tiredness of serving. A completely different kind of question. You talked about pushback against well-established concepts, notably the participation of women. Can you tell us which countries are pushing back on that particular idea? Well, let me deal with Syria first. Well, I think about how I answered the second question. First of all, I don't know whether in order to get agreement and to keep the Babelhauer crossing open, we effectively had to agree to a six-month rather than 12-month extension with a view to it being, well, two six-month chunks, but there needs to be agreement before the second one gets delivered. So we won't be on the Security Council for that, but we will certainly be there to help the countries that are trying to get this across the line. I mean, my hope is that there's enough tension and difficulty in the Security Council at the moment without this also being a source of tension. I mean, the consequences of shutting that UN managed crossing is that effectively Turkey will have to try to facilitate some other form of less structured and far less transparent support program for the millions of people that rely on it, which to my mind is not a good outcome for Russia or for other interests that are watching this resolution closely. So I think perhaps there's enough on their plate without creating another humanitarian crisis in Northwest Syria, but the more fundamental question that you, so I'm not going to predict it one way or the other, but I hope we'll find a way through on that. The other question I think is a very valid one, how has the world allowed conflict in Syria to last for 14 years? I mean, it is just an extraordinary stain. I think when history is written, there'll be a lot of criticism and rightly so in terms of how Syria was allowed to implode into conflict in the way that it did and that so many actors that were involved in that funding it, fueling it. And I'm not sure anyone will come out of it too well, but I, I mean, I think, you know, if you want to call them the Western world, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the EU, you know, our view on this has been that, you know, it is, there is a need for reform and a change of direction from the Assad regime before the kind of support that's needed to rebuild Syria can be funded and facilitated. And, and, you know, go into the detail on that, but there has been a stalling, a stalling, a stalling on this has been intensive UN efforts to try to provide a basis for that. And even though there is a still a lot of humanitarian assistance flowing into Syria, the kind of restructuring of a country and the international involvement that's needed to do that, to provide more permanent stability, the conditions just aren't there for it. And, and I think the UN needs to keep working to try to create them. On the, you know, I mean, what I was talking about earlier was that, you know, the, the accepted norms that, that you expect multilateralism to sort of function within terms of the parameters. Many of them are being questioned in a quite a fundamental way. You know, the moving away from language and resolutions that we thought were bedded in and, you know, were given are now being sort of questioned again. And sometimes that comes from countries that should know better, you know. So, you know, I don't want to start naming countries because I don't think that's fair, but, but I think, I think that whether it's minorities, whether it's women, whether it's on the basis discrimination on the basis of sexuality or religion, you know, the, the kind of progress that we were seeing has been really called into question and the very, the very functioning of multilateral structures and has, I think, been quite directly challenged as well by some powerful countries, which, which means that countries like Ireland and most countries our size survive on the basis of a rules-based order, you know, as opposed to powerful countries dictating. So, I think we are, we need to fight hard to protect the value system that drives a multilateral rules-based order. That sounds like sort of almost an academic term, but believe me, when you see the breakdown of that unfolding on our own continent with probably a quarter of a million people dead in 10 months, you know, hard to know an exact figure. When you see hundreds of thousands of people killed in Ethiopia, largely outside of the international spotlight in terms of international media attention, you know, at us, the capital of Ethiopia is also the head of the African Union, you know, it's a big international city. So, you know, I think, you know, I think all we can do is continue to speak up, call out reaches of what we regard as acceptable norms and international law. Sometimes that has consequences in terms of pressure and sanction, which we've seen in the last couple of weeks. We've had diplomats asked to leave Ethiopia. We've had almost our entire political system sanctioned from Moscow, singled out for some reason within the EU, but look, you know, we will continue to try and put it out in a way that hopefully allows us to be credible on an evidence-based as opposed to emotion, and we will keep channels of communication open with all these countries, as we should, to try to improve relations over time. Thank you very much. There are still many people looking to make questions. I'm afraid we've run out of time. I promise the minister that he could get away by no later than five past five, so we've been really very generous minister. Thank you so much. Congratulations to you. Thank you for your generous acknowledgement of the quality of the team, which we know well. It's been, I think, really a kind of team Ireland effort to the great credit of the country. Thank you for the cooperation with the IEA, if I may get a brief little plug in. We've particularly, I think, the stakeholder forum, I think, has been a truly innovative development, which I think will be replicated and used by other countries, so that's something we're very proud of. So thank you so much for joining us today, and best of luck for the rest of the time on the Security Council, and the many other challenges we know you face. Thank you. Thanks very much. Thank you,