The State cannot fulfil its commitment to human rights unless it has a "high consciousness" of the issue of rendition, the former president, Mary Robinson, has said.
She described rendition, as highlighted in a recent EU report suggesting the Republic has been used for rendition flights, as a "total euphemism".
Mrs Robinson, a previous UN high commissioner for human rights, was speaking at the final of The Irish Times debate at Trinity College Dublin on Saturday evening.
"Rendition is taking helpless people who are in custody, kidnapping them, and transferring them to countries where we know they will be tortured," she said. "It's almost worse than torturing directly. It's the euphemism - we don't torture, but we will render to a country where we know the torture will take place, so it's a horrible breach and violation of human rights."
She continued: "I don't know, and I haven't the evidence to know, just whether or not the European report is accurate, whether we should be much more alert. But if we haven't got that as a high consciousness, then we are not fulfilling our commitment to human rights."
She added that while there were "good bits" in Irish policies, for example on development aid, there was an overall lack of coherence in these policies, with the Republic adopting a "very protectionist" approach to trade issues.
There was no doubt that the Republic had moved "very significantly" in linking in humanitarian and development terms with a world where, for example, 30,000 children under five die every day, Mrs Robinson said.
Ireland plays a "really disproportionate" role in peacekeeping and in supporting UN agencies, and was also providing leadership in attempts to combat gender-based violence.
"But this is where I really do have a serious question about where exactly we find ourselves. I don't find an overall coherence in Irish policies. I find good bits, but not a coherence. Why do I say that? Because if you look at trade, then Ireland goes back to being very protectionist," she said.
"We are a country that protects our agriculture; we tuck in behind France and Poland in European discourse on this at the moment.
"So we are generous, and truly generous, on the development aid side, and Irish aid is admired internationally for the work it has done, but we cannot really say that we are intellectually engaged in our shared global responsibilities if we don't think more on the trade side."
The issue of climate change is also a key area where the Republic has a role to play, Mrs Robinson argued.
"Climate change in developing countries is not of the future; it's actually happening now . . . The argument is that in the poorest countries, already, climate change is having an adverse impact, and it will have a much more adverse impact. Where is Ireland on that issue?" she said.
Ireland had changed very quickly since the 1970s, and "we didn't do it on our own", Mrs Robinson said. "We couldn't have done it without others. So if we're talking about global responsibilities, we are in a very good position to know what it is to be a people that has reached an extraordinary situation where we have lots of capacity to give back . . . We can do more, and I'd love to see us do more."