Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for her questions. The changing nature of peacekeeping is almost self-evident. I will give a good example. The previous time we were on the Security Council was in 2001 when 9-11 tragically happened. There has also been a great deal of tragedy this time, be it Afghanistan, Covid, Ukraine or many other conflicts.

I understand that, in 2001, the Security Council was dealing with 13 files in terms of conflicts. Today, it is dealing with over 30. That gives a sense of how significant the number of increased conflicts has been over that period of 20 years. It is hugely complex. We can all name them, from Afghanistan to Syria, Yemen, Libya and Ethiopia. It is a long list.

We are likely to see climate change impacting also on the acceleration of conflicts and tension in different parts of the world but, in particular, in already vulnerable parts of the world such as the Sahel in Africa and other parts of the Middle East. Peacekeeping in the future is likely to be less conventional in terms of keeping two countries apart and may well be more regional in terms of trying to manage the movement of people and the tensions that causes. Of course, it may well be trying to interrupt and prevent conflicts in the future which are more complex Chapter VII-type missions than observation missions or Chapter VI missions. That requires a great deal of extra training and an a great deal of extra equipment in terms of keeping the Defence Force personnel safe or as safe as we can make it in that kind of theatre and environment. Those, as I say, are the conversations that we are having.

Something we are doing from a policy perspective - this is where foreign policy and defence policy crosses over - is questioning how the UN plans for, invests in and manages the transition out of a peacekeeping mission into what follows so that one does not have peacekeepers on the ground indefinitely and countries relying on them being there. If one looks at the UNIFIL and UNDOF missions, they have been there for a very long time. If one looks at the peacekeeping mission in Somalia, for example, we are trying to manage a transition where tens of thousands of foreign soldiers no longer need to be there but that we would build up resilience within domestic systems around policing and defence capacity in a responsible way that does not contribute potentially to a new conflict. None of this is easy but it is why we were the authors of a resolution that got unanimous support that now requires the Secretary General to report back to the Security Council on peacekeeping transitions on the investment that the UN and its agencies are making in facilitating that transition over time from a blunt peacekeeping operation to something more stable. Ireland is well placed to be right in the middle of that policy, and the actioning of that on the ground. We have some experience in different parts of the world in those kind of transitions that involve politics as well as defence capacity.

As for how the commission fits into it, the commission will be central to everything for the future of the Defence Forces for the next number of decades. We will, hopefully, approve the memorandum that has come out of the commission report in the next ten days or so in government and it will give a clear signal as to where we are going in terms of increased resources, increased numbers and increased infrastructure. This is about upsizing the Defence Forces and their capacity, not downsizing, and ensuring that we get value for money in that but also spending much more money because that is what is needed to deal with the capacity issues that are required to be addressed in order that the Defence Forces can deliver what we ask of them. There is a gap between the resources they have and what we plan to ask the Defences Forces to do in terms of defence policy, whether that is in the White Paper or, indeed, evolving asks as we move into a different global environment given what is happening in Ukraine right now. For example, in the short term, we are not waiting for the commission report. We have already made a decision in relation to increasing the role of the Reserve, for example, so that it will be possible for reservists to serve overseas. We have already moved towards a more family-friendly policy and flexibilities for Defence Force personnel serving overseas where some people in certain circumstances can choose to go on a three-month rotation rather than a six-month rotation recognising family pressures and we would pair two people up for a six-month rotation so that each of them would do three months each. That kind of thinking, which we would not have seen five years ago, is now very much evident in terms of how we manage our people in the Defence Forces recognising the need for more flexibility, more family-family friendly policies and a range of other issues as well in terms of how we deal with issues such as maternity leave in the Defence Forces. Much of that is evolving and changing for the better.

Most importantly, we simply need more people across all elements of the Defence Forces. We will build a much bigger cyber command within the Defence Forces. Certainly, if one looks at what we are proposing to do within the Naval Service, we want to move to what is called double-crewing, which means an extra 700 people in the Naval Service, but that cannot happen overnight. That is a process that will take four, five, six or seven years and we need to have funding certainty to be able to make sure that we can plan for that and deliver it. All of that will flow from the commission's evidence base and recommendations, and obviously a Government decision which I do not have yet but I hope to have before we break up for the summer recess to be able start that process of quite dramatic transformation of the Defence Forces for the better in terms of restructuring, changing the culture but also, significantly, increasing the resources that are available to bring about that change. If that plan works, and I certainly hope it will, it will give us options in terms of peacekeeping abroad. Certainly, it means that I hope we will not have to rely on mandatory selection in terms of people going overseas but we would have more than enough people volunteering for positions, whether they be reservists supplementing what the Permanent Defence Force is doing or Permanent Defence Force members.