Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

——our troops should be involved in humanitarian assistance worldwide. They expect the Army to be used in a positive way in that sense. They also want to be sure that if the Army goes abroad, it is with a UN mandate, the mandate of an organisation to which they adhere.

There are issues in regard to our troops going abroad on such missions as battlegroups and rapid response forces. One of the issues involves training, and whether it is possible for them to train with other troops if they were part of one of these groups on foreign soil. I do not think that even Deputy Gormley would want our troops participating blindly in a multi-national group, whether for military crisis management or civilian crisis management, without having trained with the personnel with whom they are supposed to work.

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