Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

It is not my intention to include the Civil Defence because of the organisational structure under which it operates.

I missed one question put by Deputy O'Shea, an important question concerning battle groups. One of my colleagues, the Swedish Minister, indicated his interest in the deployment of battle groups in humanitarian disaster areas. On occasion, the capacity of battle groups could be entirely appropriate. Sometimes, the capacity which battle groups bring may not be helpful in a particular situation. For example, it could be argued that in the case of Haiti, helicopter and aerial support would have been the key requirement and current battle group configurations would have been unlikely or unable to provide such support. On the other hand, from our point of view and that of our military people and their professionalism and expertise, it is important that their capability is developed to the standard of the battle group in the first instance. It is even more important in the context of deployment overseas that the highest level of interoperability between various nations is achieved such that we can make our contribution in any international area where we are operating in a relatively seamless way.

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