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

Where does one start with this issue? I will start with what SOFAs are about. They are not for sitting on; they are in the main basically to grant immunity in the face of prosecution. They are also for things that are perhaps a little more benign, car crashes and the like, for soldiers operating overseas. If we look at how SOFAs have been used by other militaries over recent years, we can see the consequences exactly. The question is whether Ireland wants to be associated with these militaries on operations overseas, especially given what we have seen in Iraq, Somalia and the like. In case someone wants to misrepresent me, I am not suggesting that Irish soldiers are or would be in any way engaged in this, but we saw what happened in Abu Ghraib prison, for instance, and the humiliation of prisoners of war by US soldiers. I presume the same soldiers had a SOFA because they were all returned to America to face charges, which they did before a US court, not an Iraqi court. There is a significant difference between what they would have faced before a court of a country in which the incidents happened and what they faced before a US court. There were similar occurrences in Canada, which would be regarded by most countries as a peaceful country. Their soldiers ran amok in Somalia and beat a teenager to death. Footage of the incident emerged. These things happen. They are soldiers, and the SOFAs basically give them protections from the local courts and the local justice system in order that they be returned to their home countries and face prosecution in some cases. What they face before local courts and what they face before the courts of their home countries is totally different.

One question to ask about this is: why now? This still has not been answered, although the Minister of State in his contribution said, strangely enough, that approval by the Dáil is not required for ratification of the EU SOFA. What the hell are we doing if we do not need to ratify it? We have enough other material we need to get into. This SOFA was produced and linked to the Partnership for Peace, PfP, SOFA to give it some cover such that linking it to EU battlegroups may be the key reason. PfP is a NATO organisation. For us to have any link at all with it is contrary to our neutrality. It was also contrary to the promise made by the party in government at the time when it stood for election prior to that.

The original SOFA, which was requested of all the countries who were in the PfP, which included the Government at the time, was 23 years ago, in 1995. The next one, the EU SOFA, is from 2003, so it is not any new construction. I was checking something earlier so I am sorry but I was not paying 100% heed to what the Minister of State said when he opened up. Deputy Mick Wallace raised an interesting point, to which the Minister of State did not respond, in his opening gambit on this in the Dáil last week. He said that a WikiLeaks cable from 2009 showed an assistant secretary in the Department of Defence telling a US political officer of Ireland's hope to ratify the EU SOFA and the NATO PfP SOFA in 2010. Obviously, this did not happen. I was in the Dáil at the time. I attended virtually all the committee meetings that related to defence matters. I have no recollection of any attempt being made to put that SOFA before the Houses. However, promises were being made, or the US was being told, that such changes were in the offing, yet since 2010 I have heard neither sight nor sound of this. Is it a tidying up of some of the side issues to prepare us for more intense or greater links with the EU army that has been proposed? I know the answer the Minister of State will give, but every step that has been taken moves us further along the way of those within France and Germany, which were this week, in particular, speaking out on the need for a European army. Is this also a move towards tidying up some of the side issues that are preventing us from ingraining ourselves more deeply in that military operation? The Minister of State is not here to answer for his party, but the MEPs of his party want full integration into the EU military apparatus and NATO itself. They produced a policy document to this effect only a few short months ago. Is this matter before us because of that?

Thus far, the lack of operation of SOFAs on the level that the Government now wants us to operate them has not in the main hampered us, but the Minister of State referred to a number of incidents where there was difficulty. Was the difficulty in the exchange of letters because they were not sent on time? We have sometimes seen bureaucratic hiccups, especially in October last year, when Irish UNIFIL troops could not return home because, again, documentation, we were told at the time, was not sent or responded to on time. Was the fault, regarding the EU battlegroup, the Germans, or our failure to take part in operations or exercises then? From a German bureaucratic point of view, was it our fault or were the Germans putting pressure on us by refusing or being obstructive in terms of the exchange of letters to try to force the Minister of State to come before the House and get this SOFA passed?

Has there been any difficulty with the UN when Irish troops are on UN duties? I presume there is also a status of forces agreement, SOFA, in place. If there have not been any difficulties, the logic in play is that which I have used over the years, which is that, rather than looking at and chasing after other military organisations to get involved in, we should instead concentrate on our involvement with the UN. The information I have is that there have been no difficulties on UN missions. We do not have to pass these two SOFAs today or at any stage when we already have quite an effective operating SOFA which deals with what is laudable and what is acceptable to the Irish people, which is participation in UN missions abroad. I may ask further questions later.