Mr. Colm Doyle:

Let us consider the larger countries that have large armies. We have often said that if some of those go abroad, they have to unlearn combat and they have to learn about peace. The only time Irish troops have gone abroad is for peace and that is why we have been doing it continuously since 1948 when we went to Lebanon. It is why we are continuing to do it. We have a very good reputation. We are very well trained. Part of my job as Chief of Staff was to look at the standards of armies that were sending battalions to various peacekeeping missions. We would send a team of United Nations officers from New York to that country to have a look at the standard of their armies. Were they well equipped? Were they well trained? Were they aware of what peacekeeping was about? In many circumstances the United Nations would have preferred to have gone with another country that was better trained, better equipped and better able to do the job. When the Security Council or the United Nations looks for 10,000 troops, for example, they go to the member states - General O'Brien has talked about the 190-plus countries that are members - and they look for a contribution for military forces to go out on the ground. For the period I was in New York we never got the requisite number of professional, qualified troops to fulfil the mission. If the Security Council said it wanted 10,000 troops, it never got the full 10,000. That is because some of the standards of various armies differ but we in Ireland have the advantage that we only know about peacekeeping and we are good at it.