Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 8 May 2013

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

EU Scrutiny Reports: Discussion with Department of Defence

3:20 pm

Mr. Michael Howard:

We do not have figures here but I will write to the Deputy with that information. In terms of our co-operation with the European Defence Agency, one would be talking about hundreds of thousands of euro. The total for the European Union is €30 million. Our gross national income, GNI, contribution to that would be a fraction of one per cent. The cost is in six figures and I will supply the precise figure to the Deputy at a later date. That covers our contribution to the agency. In addition, Dáil Éireann has mandated our participation in a number of the agency's projects and again, our contributions would be in the hundreds of thousands of euro region. I would prefer to write to the Deputy with the precise figures rather than discuss the matter now.