Mr. Maurice Quinn:

The Senator made a point about peace building. One of the areas in which we think the Defence Forces can and do make a big contribution is security sector reform, especially in post-conflict resolution situations. Their main job is to be soldiers. We cannot get around the fact that that is their role.

With regard to the Naval Service, the policy, as espoused in the White Paper and the policy to which we are working, is that the Defence Forces interact with the third level sector and with industry. The benefit to us is early access to technology and the benefit to the company is a test bed of sorts. There are a couple of really good examples in the Naval Service which have worked very well. Again, there is nothing untoward. That is the policy we are working with at the moment.

As has been said, we attended the Defence and Security Equipment International, DSEI, fair that took place in the UK. Four or five Irish companies exhibited there. Many of the companies, as many as 25 or 26 different international companies, from whom we procure equipment were there as well. We really need to get out and see what is in the market to ensure we get the best procurement and best value for money for the Exchequer and taxpayers.

The presence of the Naval Service ship is an indicator of our long relationship and dates right back to the LÉ Niamh and LÉ Róisín. It was great to see the pride, particularly of the members of the Defence Forces who were on the ship and the way they could demonstrate their capabilities on the ship over there. That is the background.

I take the point that was made about multilateralism and neutrality. We just have to see how to capture the point. There are a whole range of policies that we in the Department of Defence work within when we engage in international missions and engage with the common security and defence policy, CSDP, in the EU.

In terms of Operation Sophia, we have always presented outcomes as we went along, and some of them were in press releases. We will continue to do so. That is my suggestion of the means by which we will track the impact of what they are doing when they are part of Operation Sophia in terms of the nature of the exercises or missions that they carry out while they are in theatre.