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

I understand we have more missions currently serving overseas than at any time previously in the history of the State. We are engaged concurrently in 14 different missions. On 22 January 2013, the Council of the European Union extended the mandate of EUTM Somalia to March 2015. This third mandate implied a significant change of focus for the mission, with the inclusion of strategic, advisory and mentoring activities in addition to training. The specific training offered by Irish Defence Forces personnel is no longer required under the new mission mandate. We maintained our numbers for as long as Brigadier General Aherne was in command of the mission, but the specific training activities in which we were engaged were no longer required and, in those circumstances, it made no sense to maintain our engagement beyond the completion of the current deployment. It is no more complex than that. Should it arise at some point in the future that we can contribute to the mission in a constructive way based on our niche skills and training capacities, that will be open for consideration.

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