Ms Maureen O'Brien:

I thank the Cathaoirleach and members of the joint committee for the invitation to speak at this very important pre-legislative scrutiny of the defence (amendment) Bill 2025. Although I am currently the president of the Association of Retired Commissioned Officers, I speak today as a private citizen not representing that association.

In October 2023, I retired from the Defence Forces having proudly served my country for 42 years. It might have been longer, had the Defence Forces been open to women when I left school. I later joined the Óglaigh na hÉireann in 1981 having completed a BSc and HDip in education from UCG, now the University of Galway.

At home in the Defence Forces I served as a platoon commander, which is a commander in charge of approximately 30 people, a unit commander who was in charge of a small unit of 100 or 120 people, and a battalion commander which could mean being in charge of a group of up to 600 people which would include Reserve personnel. I have also worked as a staff officer in planning, operations and training.

I deployed overseas a total of nine times, eight with the United Nations and once with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I served in UNIFIL Lebanon three times, in Western Sahara as a military observer, in East Timor in the operations cell, in Chad as the deputy battalion commander, UN Disengagement Force, UNDOF, in Syria's Golan area as the acting force commander, and finally in the UN headquarters in New York as the deputy military adviser to the USG Peace Operations.

I will concentrate my comments on the my final two deployments. That is the acting force commander with , UNDOF, and my appointment as deputy military adviser to the UN.

As acting force commander, I lead a multinational force of 1,100 troops, under UN Security Council Resolution 350, which mandated us to monitor the ceasefire between Israel and Syria, observe the disengagement of Syrian and Israeli forces, and supervise the areas of separation and limitation in accordance with the May 1974 agreement on disengagement. We did this by staffing camps from which our personnel could observe their area of responsibility through patrolling, mine clearance and engagement with the local population. As commander, I liaised with my Syrian and Israeli counterparts, protested any violations of the agreement to the relevant party and reported these violations to UN headquarters, subsequently. In all my dealings with the parties impartiality was essential. This impartiality was tested at times but, ultimately, my role as commander and the role of my personnel was well respected because of this open and healthy relationship that I had built.

In 2021, having been nominated by Ireland, I successfully competed for the appointment of deputy military adviser to the Under-Secretary-General, USG, for Peace Operations in the UN headquarters in New York. The Office of Military Affairs, which is where I was situated, with fewer than 90 staff from 41 different nations, is responsible for the following: the force generation tor all missions; the military planning for new missions and changes to the configuration of existing missions; monitoring the current operations; assessing the military performance of troop contributing countries; and policy and doctrine. There were 65,000 military personnel deployed at that time in 12 peacekeeping missions. After Covid restrictions were downgraded, I visited every UN mission, not only the headquarters but also the observation posts many hundreds of miles away from the headquarters, where some of personnel lived in difficult conditions. However, wherever I went it was clear that the local civilians valued the safety and security provided by the personnel in our UN observation posts, even setting up their own camps beside them.

In the context of this committee's discussions, there is one point I want to bring to its attention. When a troop-contributing country, TCC, is selected to deploy to a mission, it must sign what we call a statement of unit requirements. This is a contractual agreement for the finances involved but also lays out the conditions of their deployment, for example, the detail of their physical deployment, the types of equipment that they must bring and so on. It is also an opportunity to declare caveats, if any, that that TCC may have regarding its operations, based on its national military doctrine, for example.

In the case of Ireland, we are very clear that military command and control of an Irish unit remains with the Irish commander at all times. This caveat is notified to the force commander so that she or he is fully aware of the restrictions involved, which may limit her or his operational flexibility. Declared national caveats are not uncommon. However, it is the undeclared caveats which arise in the mission at critical times which are of more concern to the force commander and the office of military affairs. The requirement for Irish military personnel to be under the command and control of an Irish commander is enshrined in the Defence Act and therefore is applicable to any military deployment, not just UN missions. I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak on this important matter. I am happy to answer any questions that may help members in their subsequent deliberations.