There must be a "balanced expansion" of the UN Security Council, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern told the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday.
"The council needs to become more representative, for the sake of its credibility and legitimacy ... greater legitimacy will lead to increased respect for its decisions and thereby make it more effective," said the Minister, who was appointed earlier this year as a special envoy of UN secretary general Kofi Annan to promote UN reform in the European region.
At present, the Security Council has 15 members: five of them - China, France, Russia, UK and US - hold permanent seats and the other 10 are elected for a term of two years each.
The Minister pointed out that there were "two competing visions of reform, both of which are strongly and sincerely held". But in his speech to the committee, Mr Ahern steered a cautious middle way between the two alternatives and took care not to commit the Government to supporting either side.
The Group of Four (G4) countries - Germany, Japan, India and Brazil - favour six new permanent seats, four for themselves and two for African states, as well as four new non-permanent seats. "They have made strong cases for their own credentials for permanent membership," Mr Ahern said.
"On the other hand, the Uniting for Consensus Group, which includes countries such as Italy, Spain, Turkey, Mexico, Argentina, Indonesia and Pakistan, have made cogent counter-arguments against the creation of new permanent seats and have elaborated an alternative vision of the Council based on the addition of 10 new elected seats."
The Minister commented: "I have, given my envoy status, sought to avoid public comment on the merits of the competing proposals."
Labour spokesman on foreign affairs Michael D. Higgins TD said it would be "quite disastrous" if Security Council reform distracted attention from the Millennium Development Goals on the reduction of poverty and elimination of disease.
Progressive Democrats TD Liz O'Donnell said the committee had parliamentary oversight of Irish foreign policy and, as such, was entitled to know when the commitment to reach the UN target of allocating 0.7 per cent of GNP for development aid was going to be fulfilled.