Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

In my contribution on Second Stage I referred to the area of "established and authorised". I referred to the legal advice we received that the word "established" was not adequate. The meaning of the expression "established" is to establish a mission and we were involved in missions that had never been established by the United Nations but rather had been authorised or sanctioned by the United Nations. The advice was that it was time to bring the statutory provisions in line with what was happening. A question hung over the legal certainty surrounding the deployment of our troops abroad because the 1960 Act only refers to missions established by the United Nations. The Minister was doing that and was rejecting the advice of his Attorney General. If he was not rejecting the advice of the Attorney General he would leave it as it was. If the Attorney General said that the word "established" meant the same as "authorised"——

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