Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

People may be genuinely surprised to realise there are 454 personnel serving in Lebanon. We should continue to publicise this fact and praise the work they have done there. I noticed in the local media during the summer that locally based soldiers were writing articles about their work in Lebanon and it struck me that we should increase awareness of this. The 454 personnel all came from certain schools. Perhaps the Defence Forces might engage in some form of communications exercise with local schools, without giving too much away, to build knowledge of the work done by the Defence Forces in Lebanon. We have had a relationship with Lebanon since the 1970s but not enough work has been done during that time to build on the relationship.

On another issue, if our operations in Lebanon are being reviewed as part of the CS4 reorganisation, to which the Minister referred, will we still be in a position to maintain this level of deployment in Lebanon next year?

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