Mr. Conor King:

No problem. On the neutral status or otherwise of Ireland, it is the professionalism and training of our soldiers that empowers us to do the job when we are overseas. I do not have any other comment on that.

War fighting is not really a term I am familiar with as a commissioned officer in the Defence Forces. I do serve and have served on Chapter VII peace enforcement missions. I would not have described it as war fighting. That was with KFOR in Kosovo on two occasions. I looked at Major General Kieran Brennan's testimony to the committee with great interest. He spoke about his experience as a commander in Chad, which was also a Chapter VII mission. I defer to experts who have greater knowledge than I do in respect of that definition.