THERE IS A significant possibility that sparks will fly as the relationship develops between our new president and our government, notably on foreign policy issues. Attitudes to the European Union could be a flashpoint.

We have to allow our new president time to settle in as well as the benefit of some doubt. She may be less confrontational with the government on EU policy than some of her previous stances suggest. She might genuinely seek to represent all the Irish people, as she insists, rather than just those who share her strong euroscepticism. I wouldn’t count on it, but it’s possible.

The understandable disappointment in Ireland at the EU’s inability to take a stronger stance on Gaza has had an impact on public opinion here. The EU’s inaction was due largely to the fact that all of its foreign policy decisions necessarily require unanimity, a requirement of which Ireland, including those who most strongly criticise the EU on the Gaza issue, has always been broadly supportive.

Even on the proposed trade measures against Israel, it has not been not possible to cobble together the necessary qualified majority for the EU to act. It’s not a matter of a monolithic “EU” getting it wrong. It’s about the interplay between the views of member states, several of which carry an understandable historical guilt in relation to the Holocaust, and about the decision-making procedures we have all signed up to.

However, there is no suggestion that the overwhelming majority of Irish people remain anything other than strongly pro-European. President Connolly, during her campaign, felt it necessary to claim to........

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