Dr. Cathal Berry:

To echo some of my colleagues' views, professionalism is about standards. As I said before, the ultimate safeguard that had not been mentioned until today is the standard of professionalism in the Defence Forces. That is a layer of safeguarding. We have a judge advocate general branch, which advises the Chief of Staff. As my colleagues also mentioned, military advice is an excellent safeguard.

As for whether, if we move away and interact with other organisations, we will be conducting warfighting, I would say absolutely not. The OSCE, for instance, is an unarmed monitor force. That is even below the threshold of the UN. The UN generally deploys with weapons, whereas the OCSE does not. There is also a complete difference between peace enforcement and warfighting. One is about separation of parties, using minimum force if necessary, and the other is about defeating an enemy and seizing its capital city. Any kind of comparison between those two things is completely misinformed.