A Government motion that Ireland should participate in PfP is now expected to be agreed by the Dail next week. Should this prove to be the case I think it is a development to be welcomed.

It is a modest step in international co-operation. In participating, we are taking our place with virtually every other European nation together with the nations of North America and Central Asia. Many of the members of the partnership are former members of the Warsaw Pact. More are former constituent republics of the Soviet Union. The diversity of the membership is so broad that it is almost universal from the Pacific Ocean right round to the north-western Chinese border.

Those of us who have long advocated participation in PfP have begun to tire of hearing the mantra that Ireland's "traditional neutrality" (whatever that may be) will be prejudiced. If it is, how is it that genuine intellectually and ideologically convinced neutrals such as Sweden, Austria, Finland and Switzerland have been able to join?

None of these countries has expressed any desire to join NATO and none appears to have any such intention. Why is it that we are still told that the PfP is but a stepping stone to NATO?

The facts are different from some of the fantasy that is sought to be developed here. Some people never mention PfP without describing it as "NATO-led". The truth is that it is not NATO-led. It may indeed be the creation in 1994 of the post-Cold War NATO, but it is not the creature of NATO. Would the Swiss be in it if it were a creature of NATO?

The central fact is that the PfP entails no treaty or alliance obligations. It is, therefore, fundamentally and generically different from NATO or any military alliance. It entails no obligations of mutual defence or assistance. It essentially consists of an enormous a la carte menu from which partners or prospective partners can choose such items as appeal to them and reject others.

Looking at Ireland's presentation document published recently, one is forced to the conclusion that Ireland is on something of a restricted diet where the partnership dishes are concerned. The Government has listed five items only, as follows:

Co-operation on peacekeeping.

Humanitarian operations.

Search-and-rescue.

Co-operation in the protection of the environment.

Co-operation in marine matters.

These are pretty harmless headings. They could scarcely be described as a contribution to global belligerency. The short presentation document of five pages could hardly ruffle a feather or raise an eyebrow in the most pacifist of Irish households.

In the run-up to several of the European Union treaties we had in this country a somewhat unbalanced debate, where all sorts of wild claims and allegations were made and an atmosphere approaching hysteria was sought to be generated in some quarters. Then we signed the treaty and ratified it and no more was heard until the next one came along. The dark forebodings were proved to be groundless. And so it will be with this.

In a year's time we will ask one another what all the fuss was about. If a fuss was justified because we were imposing on ourselves some form of international military obligations, why was that fuss not kicked up in Switzerland? The Swiss bring democracy to its extremes. Each year there are several referendums held on a variety of matters. Even such relatively trivial local matters as the closing time in bars can be the subject of a referendum.

There is provision in the Swiss system that a comparatively small number of citizens can petition for a referendum and it must be granted, but in Switzerland there was no petition for a referendum on PfP. That, I suggest, may be because the Swiss are somewhat more factual and less emotional than ourselves and are not prepared to be misled by propaganda that is clearly duplicitous.

The significance of this Swiss position may be more fully understood when we realise that they joined the Partnership for Peace without a murmur and indeed with some enthusiasm, but they are not prepared to join the United Nations because they see in its charter the possibility of having international obligations thrust upon them. In this respect I think they are both legally and factually correct.

The Europe that we inhabit has made giant strides in economic co-operation. Political co-operation in matters internal to the European Union has improved greatly. Where we all fall down is in the development of a common foreign and security policy.

The great weakness is our collective inability to cope on an agreed basis with serious external insecurity, such as the Balkans. As Europeans we have been rescued from our common paralysis both in Bosnia and in Kosovo by the United States. I find it hard to tolerate, either as a European or as an Irishman, that we render ourselves impotent where foreign and security policy arises. Irish people are essentially internationalists. Why do some of us try to deny our own international heritage by balking at meaningful co-operation with others, unless it results in money for ourselves?

When the democratic world is forced from time to time to deal with a tyrant it is better that we have the ability to do so rather than the self-inflicted need to appease him.

Even the most skilful diplomacy will occasionally come up against brick walls. Rather appropriately the secretary-general of the Department of Foreign Affairs reminded the Joint Foreign Affairs Committee of Bismarck's dictum: "Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments".

Desmond O'Malley is chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee