In 2011, following the European sovereign debt crisis, the newly elected Irish government opted to grant responsibility for trade to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). The recognition that Ireland’s economy needed rebuilding which was only capable through foreign investment hastened financial recovery, but has pushed the state into the addictive drug of foreign capital to the neglect of citizens’ interests.
The mantle of trade policy was removed from the DFA after the 2020 election following a reshuffling of government portfolios that gave then Tánaiste Leo Varadkar a more impressive Ministerial title while waiting for his turn to be head of government. Unsurprisingly, with the looming crisis of a harsh economic clamp-down by the second Trump Administration, the 2025 platform for government will return this critical competency to the Irish foreign service.
In this circumstance, it appears Irish leaders have learnt from their mistake, but have they truly taken the lesson to heart? A cursory investigation into the coalition government’s foreign policy goals indicates no: they have not.
It appears the Defence Forces will continue as is, though with greater budgetary privileges and a special effort to expand the reservists corps. Seemingly learning from their mistakes, upgrading Haulbowline naval base is highlighted as a necessary step, but nowhere is there mention of the lack of personnel or even ships for them to sail on!
The platform for government makes grand, generic pledges to protect the rules-based multilateral international order, though neglects to elaborate on how that may be done. Not once is this unshakeable tenet of the Irish liberal psyche questioned, as our leaders have so long confined themselves to Plato’s Cave that they cannot see their multilateral fever-dream is dead.
Blindly binding their hands by supporting future European Union (EU) free trade deals, it is apparent government negotiators post-Mercosur deal have not learnt a single thing. Promises to protect Irish agriculture amidst future EU free trade negotiations are too little too late – if French President Emmanuel Macron could not scuttle Ursula Von Der Leyen’s unilaterally imposed Mercosur treaty, what makes Irish leaders so confident they could do it themselves?
Irish officials must have whiplash from the series of screw-ups which have brought the country’s international credibility and influence to its nadir. Even in the oh-so-important European Union, the Irish government has received a belting from diplomatic officials in despair over their systemic failure to accrue positions and representation for Ireland in European institutions.
In years past, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were seen as job conveyor-belts for the upwardly mobile, today they cannot even muster “jobs for the boys.” The appointment of Michael McGrath the commissioner’s portfolio of justice and the rule of law encapsulates the EU’s perception of Ireland as a member. Not competent enough for an important portfolio, but loyal enough to be Von Der Leyen’s attack-dog against her illiberal critics.
The platform for government has promised a communications campaign targeted towards students and postgraduates to increase Irish employment in European Union bureaucracy. It remains to be seen whether government actors will have the time on their hands to implement such policies, as they will doubtlessly be busy promoting the government’s new John Hume Fund vanity prize to Members of the European Parliament.
In preparation for Ireland’s 2026 Presidency of the European Council, the government has set goals to create a sustainability policy, as well as to bring European Council meetings to rural areas across the country, ensuring that each Teachta Dála’s re-election campaign might benefit from the prestige and investment of hosting such events. Rather than putting forward a plan to upscale Irish influence across the EU, one can easily imagine that more discussion was given towards which party would hold the office of Taoiseach during Ireland’s term.
As regards the Middle East, the government has committed themselves to progress legislation to prohibit the sale of goods from Occupied Palestinian Territories. Noticeably the wording of said promise includes no mention of the controversial Occupied Territories Bill, thereby leaving the door open for the government to scrap the legislation for a more moderate alternative.
The government’s proposal to extensively expand cooperation between states who support a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, though seemingly a serious plan, may jeopardise other aspects of Irish foreign policy.
Ireland’s vocal activism for the Palestinian cause may come to backfire just as the state tries desperately to recuperate its influence in Washington with a Republican administration. Critically, American conservatives over the past year have watched Democrat protestors, Palestinian flags in-hand, condemn and excoriate the United States as an inherently evil country. Safe to say, Dublin will have to work overtime to change its image.
As part of the re-branding of “Team Ireland”, one such government proposal will increase advocacy for undocumented Irish citizens living in the United States. Given that the Trump Administration has promised to carry-out the largest deportation of illegal migrants in world history, it is unlikely Irish officials will be met warmly on this issue.
Though the government has realised the Irish diaspora in the United States are important, Dublin progressives may find it difficult to win over conservative Irish-Americans for whom the cultural liberalisation of the 1990s was a mistake rather than a Godsend.
The proposal to open an Irish diplomatic presence in Southern States, known for their conservative social culture, at surface level appears a worthwhile move. But when one realises this in practice means sending Irish diplomats to live in a liberal metropolis like Charlotte, North Carolina, or isolated Appalachian cities, it is unlikely this strategy will build the in-roads to the Trump Administration Ireland is looking for.
Boosting staffing levels for Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland will not change things either. The government’s proposals largely appear as if they will throw money at whatever problems they face, hoping they will go away. They will not, and Dublin will have to come to terms with the frightening reality that in the trade of diplomacy, which is primarily based on trust and social capital, money won’t solve a thing.
Irish leaders haven’t learnt much with regards to their blind multilateralism either, committing the country to upholding the United Nations’ Sustainable Development
Goals, and promising to focus on increasing the budget of its overseas development assistance, with special priority for Afghanistan and Sudan.
Ireland has not waived in its unequivocal support for Ukraine either, and has affirmed that “Russia cannot win this war.” This begs the question as to how an island nation whose leaders are terrified that a democratically-elected leader across the ocean will nuke their economy, would stand up against an authoritarian state like Putin’s Russia?
But aside from all hollow promises and disastrous policy proposals in-waiting, the most fascinating of the government’s intended goals for the foreign policy of the 34th Dáil, is the creation of a new strategy for the Department of Foreign Affairs, titled Global Ireland 2040. This strategy map for Irish investment abroad, and developing Irish presence around the world will be interesting to compare differences to the Department’s previously liberal policy papers.
Irish leaders’ high-falutin propositions for the country’s future are piece-meal, ineffective, and oftentimes utter disastrous. The dismal quality of promises from the Oireachtas has not changed, but perhaps the State’s bureaucracy has the foresight to begin a change in course?
Max Keating