Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to tell the Deputy that preliminary discussions have been held on Ireland's possible participation in 2015 in the Nordic battle group, to which he referred. Ireland participated in the Nordic battle group in 2008 and 2011. Other members of the Nordic battle group were Sweden which was acting as the framework nation, Finland, Norway, Estonia and Croatia. Ireland is due to participate again in the Austro-German battle group in 2016. This is also under positive consideration.

We view our participation as being beneficial to the Defence Forces with regard to training and interoperability issues but also as signifying in a European Union context that we are willing to come together with other member states to deal with peacekeeping, peace enforcement and rescue missions. It is important we are seen to make a contribution in this area and that is the Government's perspective on this.

The Deputy might be interested to know that at European level a dialogue has commenced to examine the utility of the battle group concept. Rather than an entire battle group being deployed on a peacekeeping mission on some occasion under a United Nations mandate should some issue arise, Europe could beneficially participate by deploying a portion of a battle group with particular skills. That might be worth considering for the future, as opposed to battle groups being in place, which fortuitously to date have not been called upon, and they having a certain level of training but not being utilised in a manner that could be beneficial in peacekeeping or peace enforcement missions.

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