Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I strongly recommend that we start talking about that and that this ambition is put up in lights as one of centre's goals. Organisations such as the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation often quietly do valuable work and the public, including me, do not know enough about that work. Now that the witnesses are here, I hope the work of the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation will be a project for us to work on into the future. It is an exceptionally worthwhile goal to develop a global peace centre. This is what the world needs. We can then marry that with the tremendous work done by the Defence Forces over the years as peacekeepers. When I was Minister for Defence, I had the pleasure of visiting our peacekeepers in various parts of the world. The respect that Irish troops are held in is fantastic. We are renowned for our ability in peacekeeping. We do not go in with all guns blazing and force peace on people. We have built up tremendous goodwill through the methods we use to build peace. This is probably one of the most important issues we can get involved in, as is the development of a global peace centre. The world is bad enough and it needs people like the witnesses to be pushed out to the front.

We need to show the world we can play a leading role in peacekeeping because our troops have done a tremendous amount of good work through their peacekeeping methods in various parts of the world. The Chairman has probably visited our troops on peacekeeping missions. It is tremendous to see the respect that exists for Ireland due to that work. There is no aggression involved. It is a skill that has been built up over the years and it is something that cannot be bought.

I fully support the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation and its development. We cannot do or say enough to encourage greater publicity for the work it does. The image of Ireland as peacekeepers is tremendous but much of the work being done is unknown. We need to push it out front and let the public know. We will get public support because people have tremendous respect for our peacekeepers. Those of us who were fortunate enough to serve as a Minister saw that at first hand. It has been extremely worthwhile to meet the witnesses. I support the ambition of the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation to develop a global peace centre. It is a tremendous goal to have and we should push forward with it. It is entirely in keeping with our peacekeeping missions.