Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The point of moving on from the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, mission is to move away from having large numbers of heavily armed foreign troops in Afghanistan and towards the resolute support mission, which is a training mission to help build Afghanistan's capacity to run its own affairs. We are trying to move away from a wartime situation and to create peace and stability in order that there can be a governance structure as well as the military and policing capacity necessary to protect it and populations. We are a part of this. We have seven Defence Forces personnel there. This is a non-combat mission and it is concerned with training and building capacity in order that Afghanistan can look forward to some kind of normalisation in terms of running its own affairs. This is the only motivation for the countries that are remaining as part of the 12,000-strong mission. I named a number of the countries that are in Afghanistan in partnership with Ireland, including many other neutral countries. They are there for all the right reasons, as is Ireland.

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