A SENIOR IRISH diplomat and one time United Nations legal counsel has said that Ireland’s commitment to the rules-based order in international affairs is “front, heart and centre” of the country’s diplomatic activities.
Ambassador to Italy Patricia O’Brien was speaking to The Journal at the State’s embassy in Rome.
O’Brien and her team are working on building further bilateral links between Ireland and Italy and is set to open a consulate in Milan – the heart of the country’s heavy industry sector.
In a previous article the ambassador and former high level UN official spoke of the multilateral work she and her colleagues do on food security.
Italy has gone through a tumultuous period of political instability compared to the almost granite like stability of Ireland.
The election of Giorgia Meloni as prime minister in waiting along with her far right Fratelli d’Italia, which is aligned to Matteo Salvini’s League party and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, has caused some disquiet across Europe.
This combined with the rise of right wing anti-European groups in Hungary, Sweden and other locations on the Continent is adding to the concerns of Governments.
There is also a current threat to the rule of law in Poland which has seen the Polish state suffer a fine from the European Union.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the rise of autocracy in other parts of the world have all set diplomatic pulses racing.
Ironically diplomatic sources have told The Journal that rather than dismissing the rules based order of international diplomacy, the Russians practice an ‘alternative’ version of it.
Irish values
Taoiseach Micheál Martin recently made a speech in the United Nations calling for the strengthening of links between countries.
“The United Nations, and the rules-based international order, is central to who we are as a nation.
“But multilateralism can only succeed if it is effective. And it can only be effective if we, the Member States, allow it to be so. That takes courage. It takes political will. It takes commitment to collective solutions to global challenges. It takes a readiness to compromise,” he said.
O’Brien echoes that when talking to this website and said that this is an everyday reality for Irish diplomats.
She would not be drawn on Ireland’s opinion of the election of Meloni’s far right alliance only to say that the State was watching with interest.
“I can tell you, I was a lawyer for 30 years of my life, five of those as the UN Legal Counsel, to promote the rules based international order was front, heart, centre, it was number one.
“You can imagine in that role, we were dealing with wars, Syria was just breaking out, I won’t give you an interview on that particular job, but it is deep in my soul.
“So that’s my own personal view. Ireland espouses this absolutely, unassailably, as a fundamental part of our values,” she said.
The promotion of the rule of law and the multilateral commitment to interact with nations through international laws is fundamental to the work of O’Brien and other diplomats.
“We have to completely promote this every minute of our waking life as diplomats. It’s our absolute job.
“I think we all do it easily and our leadership is clear on this.
“It is, again, my primary focus is to protect Ireland’s interests to promote Ireland’s interests in Italy, here in the embassy, and through our work in the embassy and to encourage the strengthening and deepening of our relations with Italy,” she added.
Industry and investment
Ireland is also assisting Italy in other ways, particularly as a European partner in the post-Covid recovery.
Italy has received hundreds of millions of Euro in payments from the EU to deal with the fall out from the pandemic with Italy one of the hardest hit countries in the world.
O’Brien is also engaged in cultural work, including visits from the National Gallery of Ireland to meet Italian museum curators.
But it is the potential for trade that is capturing Irish eyes and hence the need for an Irish presence in the northern heartland.
O’Brien said it is the third largest economy in the Eurozone, the eighth largest by nominal GDP in the world and the eighth largest exporter in the world.
Italy accounts for three per cent of total Irish goods exports with bilateral trade set at €6.5bn in 2021 – with exports to officially worth 4.3 billion.
The embassy is also working with the Italian Government on the promotion of Ireland as a destination for tourists from the Mediterranean country.
Diplomats are also engaged with Bórd Bia on the promotion of Irish beef – there is also a lot of work by Enterprise Ireland and the IDA around foreign direct investment particular in the bio-pharmaceutical sector.
It doesn’t end there as Ireland is also speaking to Italian industry around battery manufacturing and the tech sector around data centres.
“An important sign of the importance of trade I think is that the Cabinet decided very recently to open a consulate general in Milan, as you understand how North of Italy is far more developed than the South. So the industry is largely in that area,” she said.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say