Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

The point I am making is not that we should stop participating in overseas missions but rather that we should take a step back and consider where and how we engage in such missions. The Minister referred to "effective peacekeeping" and that is precisely what I am talking about. Our current policy has been described as a type of scattergun approach which sends Irish soldiers as unarmed observers to a multitude of locations.

These are often sent in small numbers. In the context of the limited resources available to the Defence Forces and the limited impact small numbers can have, we should stand back from that. It is a worrying trend that we are getting involved with forces under EU and NATO banners. For example, the mission in Chad is more about furthering French economic interests than a serious attempt at peacekeeping. The question seeks to examine missions such as the Congo, where 5 million people have died due to conflict since 1996. This has been ignored by European states and others. A fully-fledged UN mission, with Irish troops participating, could have an effective role rather than the current scattergun approach.

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