Five main issue areas are dealt with by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his department: Northern Ireland and Anglo-Irish affairs; the co-ordination of Irish policy in the European Union; policy towards and relations with other states and international organisations; development co-operation and human rights policies; consular affairs and the operation of the foreign service. It is a demanding agenda for a small state. Successive ministers have chosen to emphasise some but rarely all of these areas, necessarily following their own interests as well as addressing the policy priorities of the Government of the day.
Mr David Andrews, who is to resign as Minister for Foreign Affairs in two days' time, was no exception to this rule. He played a significant, deeply committed but essentially secondary role in the Northern Ireland peace process, in which the Taoiseach has been central. He was often less than fully engaged in the running routine of EU business, which has come to take up so much of his department's time and energy. His most distinctive (and distinguished) work has been rather in the classical fields of foreign policy concerned with disarmament, security policy, the United Nations, ethnic and civil conflicts and development.
Successive initiatives in these fields drew on traditional Fianna Fail foreign policy concerns. They included an important initiative with several other states on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament; a passionate commitment to the United Nations and the campaign for an Irish Security Council seat; involvement in peace initiatives in Algeria, Rwanda, Chechnya, the Balkans and - most notably - East Timor; and a continuing commitment to development and human rights. As he recently wrote in this newspaper, although Ireland is a small country and we should not exaggerate our influence, "we can make a difference. We can and do play a distinctive and significant role". At his best Mr Andrews has valuably reminded us of this fact. He also showed the way to linking that role with Ireland's involvement in the EU, again most notably on East Timor, where his courageous intervention sharpened European perceptions of that conflict at a crucial stage of its development last summer.
Mr Andrews has been criticised for neglecting the minutiae and much of the substance of EU policies. But the Taoiseach chose to run the Agenda 2000 negotiations very tightly himself last year, as befitted a negotiation bearing so much on Ireland's material benefits from Brussels. The two men worked closely together in swinging Ireland's policy towards the mainstream of the fast-developing debate on European security, including joining the Partnership for Peace military co-operation network sponsored by NATO. Mr Andrews has insisted that Ireland's military neutrality is not as yet affected by these trends.
The experience of his time in office rather points up the real shortfall between the challenge of such a demanding international agenda and the resources successive governments have chosen to devote to the Department of Foreign Affairs. Ireland is much the most under-resourced EU state in that respect. Just as important as finding the best-qualified person for the job is that the Taoiseach should resolve to provide the extra resources to allow that department fulfil its wide range of responsibilities most effectively.