Just read through the blog entries and checked out the great photos. Fantastic to see this initiative is off the ground and going so well and we honestly couldn’t ask for a better couple of people than you to be going round and getting people inspired and fired up for a ban on cluster bombs. Great stuff and thanks for the tireless work!

I’ve had it expressed to me a few times now that Irish civil society isn’t used to seeing the government as the good guy here - the guy at the anti-war movement talk isn’t alone. I agree with your comments from the briefing with Alison and Foreign Affairs that “Ireland is one of these strong core countries and her brief was open and had one point, to get the strongest treaty possible. It’s impressive to see a government operate like this. They don’t talk about exceptions and reservations or keeping a few loopholes, they just talk plain and straight.” That’s right but we need to make sure the Irish government stands firm and that there are no compromises on the wrong things or at the wrong times. Your initiative with the Ban Bus and all our campaigners coming from around the world will have a critical role to play on this front.

We’d love to have more NGO representatives in the room during the negotiations and we’ve consistently said this to the Irish. We’re really glad that the Irish haven’t given in to pressure to exclude NGOs from the informal consultations and we’ll be in there, participating fully, intervening and reporting on what goes on in those meetings. So there’s no exclusion there, those side meetings certainly won’t be taking place behind closed doors. There may not have a camera in there, but rest assured the CMCers that are in there will make sure they are transparent.

Can’t wait to catch up for a pint of that Guinness that was wafting over your former apartment. Take care, drive safe and see you next week.

Thomas

P.S. I think my comment is longer than your posting, ha ha!