Dr. Cathal Berry:

Yes, and it is not that. A second tier would be the General Assembly, and that does meet the threshold for Irish law, as the Senator quite rightly said. That is the desirable one.

Second, on delegation of command, what the legislation says is that the Minister can delegate operational control to an international commander but not command. There are no Irish troops under command of any non-Irish officer anywhere in the world. They have operational control over Irish troops but not command. Operational control is a level below that of command.

Finally, the Senator asked a question on maintaining national security. My interpretation of that is very similar to Article 52 of Chapter 8, which are activities that are consistent with the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

I hope that answered the Senator’s three questions - as succinctly as I could.