The Department of Foreign Affairs was rightly proud when it won a seat on the UN Security Council last October. It fought off an aggressive challenge from Italy - which has left scars on Rome-Dublin relations - while lobbying hard for the support of other UN nations. Dublin secured promises of backing from countries as large and important as Japan and Australia and as tiny as Tuvalu. One of the great powers which Iveagh House is convinced was "on-side" in the secret ballot was the US. Bill Clinton was still in charge, relations were excellent and Washington seemed to be making all the right responses to Irish lobbying efforts. Even though the Republic was up against two NATO members, Italy and Norway, for two vacant seats, there seemed no doubt, especially when to everyone's astonishment we took the first seat, that the US had voted for us.
Not so. According to a high-level Quidnunc source privy to that decision, the US decided not to vote for the Republic on the grounds that it "could not be trusted" on foreign policy. The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, said following the result that it "illustrates the high regard in which Ireland's contribution to the work of the UN is held throughout the world". But the US, apparently, was one of only 43 countries out of 173 which declined to fully endorse that view and didn't vote for us. It's not only Albion that can be perfidious.