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

The more the Minister of State speaks, the more questions pop up in my head. He stated in his first contribution that EU SOFA is covered by the Lisbon treaty and therefore does not require Dáil approval. He then said he could just go to Cabinet. He is being transparent. I welcome transparency on every occasion. Is linking the two together cover for the PfP SOFA? I presume we have UN SOFAs for all the UN missions we have been involved in. Have there been any bureaucratic delays that he was blaming on Germany in terms of the EU battle group? Of the 565 soldiers who are operating overseas, 504 are on UN mandated missions. Most of us feel it is where Ireland has excelled and what it should concentrate on. There are 42 others on EU operations abroad and 19 soldiers or officers in various EU, NATO or OSCE offices dotted around the country. Ireland's soldiers are present in 17 countries outside of the UN missions. Are there 17 exchanges of letters, guarantees of immunity or additional protections, which the Minister of State spoke about, that soldiers should have?

I will give some context to the issue of the German battle group. The German Minister was the one who was dictating to Ireland whether we should be involved in the EU battle group. We must remember that the underlying military or policy strategy of the Germans is to further integrate Germany into the creation of a European army. I do not say that. The head of the country said only last week that the aim is to build a common military culture. That means levelling the playing field and making it easier for different countries to amalgamate and to have joint operations, suck them fully into the apparatus and send them off on missions when they have been trained. Military culture, common defence industry and common arms exports contribute to the creation of a European army. That is exactly what is happening. Some of the steps are quite big. The Minister of State said we do not require it. Why are we taking steps that further integrate us? If the Germans do not want Irish troops in the EU battle group, they should say it, if it means an exchange of letters. If they want it, they will recognise the tradition of Ireland is to seek those letters. It has worked well in the past. In some ways, the German Parliament is dictating not only our economic strategy but our defence strategy.

I should have asked a question earlier. In his contribution, the Minister of State stated that Irish soldiers were sent on deployment to Congo in 2003 without the conclusion of the letters of exchange. They were back home before that happened.

It would be interesting to hear from the former Minister for Defence, Mr. Michael Smith. Is it being suggested that he was negligent or in dereliction of duty in sending Irish soldiers abroad on an EU mission to the Congo without the cover to which the Minister of State is demanding we sign up willy-nilly and which will never come before the House again?

The Minister of State began by saying RACO is a great organisation and I agree. Its job is to represent the interests of officers, protect their future and ensure the military has the equipment and resources required to fully train officers, but it does not dictate international military policy. That is the job of the Houses of the Oireachtas and, thereafter, the Minister. It has points of view and while it is sometimes useful to work with people of fellow standing and so on, it is not its role.

The Minister of State also mentioned that the Attorney General has been involved in this area and that it will take a long time. When was the Attorney General first asked to consider the matter? Deputy Kehoe has been Minister of State with responsibility for defence since 2011, which was eight years ago. The Wikileaks cable suggests that the document was virtually ready to be signed off on in 2010. That is a long time for a short document. Between 2010 and now, how did the Attorney General overcome the problems? He did not agree to sign up at the time, and the official in question in the Wikileaks cable indicated that there were problems with us signing up. All of a sudden, those problems have been overcome and the Minister of State wants to present the document to the House. Is it just a matter of the arithmetic in the Chamber, or have there been guarantees from other countries that give us additional protections? The Minister of State may believe we require those protections but we should not seek them. Rather, we should continue in the way that Deputy Barrett suggested, looking to the UN for the honourable and laudable duties of operating overseas in peacekeeping missions.