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

Despite the economic difficulties, our Defence Forces are better equipped than they have been at any time in the history of the State. In the context of the tasks we have to perform abroad in UN missions, they have the equipment required for the tasks they are undertaking. Most recently, with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, UNDOF, mission, I made demands of the UN with regard to the type of equipment we believed was necessary for our forces to have so as to perform their duties. We had that equipment and the UN agreed our forces could take it with them in their deployment to the Golan Heights. It ensured there were no serious injuries in a recent incident there. If there had been lesser equipment, such as that to which the mission originally was confined, there could have been a difficulty.

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