Comments by President helped focus attention on neutrality debate, says chair of security forum

The chair of the Consultative Forum on International Security Policy has said she did not share President Higgins’ view that Ireland was undergoing a dangerous “drift” in terms of foreign policy, but she conceded that President Higgins’ comments were positive in that they helped stimulate debate.

Prof Louise Richardson, to whom President Higgins apologised after making a disparaging remark about her being a dame of the British empire, said she had accepted Prof Higgins’ apology and had no interest in revisiting the issue when asked about the matter at University College Cork.

“I have admired and have been an admirer of Michael D Higgins, President Higgins since my student days, and I think he made a throwaway remark. He apologised fulsomely and graciously for it – as far as I’m concerned the issue is closed,” she said in an interview after the forum concluded for the day.

A native of Tramore, Co Waterford, Prof Richardson said that she did not wish to engage in a public row with President Higgins over his comments that Ireland was undergoing a dangerous “drift” in terms of foreign policy.

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“I’m here at as an independent chair and my job is to make as many voices as possible heard in this debate, so I would worry that a direct answer to your question (did she share President Higgins’s concern?) could be construed as my publicly disagreeing with the President.

“I think it (President Higgins’s intervention) has probably drawn more attention to the forum and insofar as the success of this forum is all about getting people to discuss these issues ... I think the more people know about the forum, the more people engage with it, the more people who submit responses, the better so in that sense, it’s drawn more attention to it – that would be a positive.”

Prof Richardson said she knew of no other country that had set up a consultative forum on its international security policy as Ireland has done with the series of four sessions over the next few days, and she paid tribute to Tánaiste, Micheál Martin for his courage in organising the events.

“I very much hope that the views that were expressed today disabuse people of the notion that this is, in any sense, a stitch-up, I would never have agreed to participate in a stitch-up. I agreed to participate in this because I think it’s a fantastic idea, and a pretty courageous one for the Tánaiste to have undertaken.

“And I really don’t know of any other country where they’ve done something like this, really tried to engage the entire population in an open conversation about a country’s role in the world, – national security is variably restricted to small groups of senior officials and decision-makers.”

Prof Richardson said that she thought one of the most interesting things was the different ways in which people used the term “neutrality” during debates, and it was absolutely clear that neutrality meant very different things to different people.

“I hope as a consequence of this forum there will be a clearer idea of what neutrality is – people were arguing today it’s not necessarily isolationism. It’s not non-alignment. Indeed as one of the speakers in the very first panel said there is nobody who considers Ireland to be unaligned.

“So neutrality in this country means something quite different to what it means in other neutral countries so I look forward to the debate that I hope will take place over the next couple of days as to what neutrality might mean.”

Prof Richardson was reluctant to be drawn on whether the Government should proceed to set up a Citizens’ Assembly on neutrality as it has done on other contentious issues, saying that was a matter solely for Government and she could not comment. “That’s really for the Government to decide. My role was limited to this consultative forum which again I think is a terrific thing to do, and other countries are paying attention, and I hope this will be a model for other countries.”