Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I understand that. I will continue with this line of thought. We have signed up to European battle groups, for instance. The logic with this interoperability is that if Ireland is involved in an EU battle group, all the telecommunications systems would be the same if we are working with armies from other countries. If they have signed up to the same satellite communications, and the logic is that one would use that when based overseas, not necessarily in Ireland, that means that there is a potential cost to the Exchequer because one still has the existing supplier. I am not opposed to it, I am merely saying that there is a logic here. Would there then be a cost of us having to switch some of our equipment or is the equipment sufficiently new that it can switch between satellite providers at a moment's notice if required? One could have a situation in Mali, for instance, where there is a detachment of Irish troops. Are they working on their own? Are they working through their own satellite provider or will they be with the other EU troops there, collectively, working off a different communications system? That would involve a cost. It might be minor, and the Minister of State is correct that the European Defence Agency is not there to make profit but it must also pay Airbus for the guaranteed space to be available 24-7, which is what the contract would be.

The space on that satellite would have to be sufficient for all the EU's military missions and operations into the future. I presume whoever negotiated the contract with Airbus would have done that. I do not know enough about satellites and how they work to figure out how much would be required, but I understand that if there are two satellites they sometimes go out of range so it is necessary to switch between different satellites. The advantage of going with Airbus is that it has so many satellites one is never in the dark at any one time. There is a logic to it but we should not present it as not having any cost. It has a potential cost in the future. That might be a better way of presenting it.