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

A number of questions have been tabled on the operations in the Mediterranean and I thank colleagues for raising that issue. We made a decision a number of weeks ago to send a ship to the Mediterranean.It caused a few eyebrows to be raised at the time because this is the first overseas mission for the Naval Service. Most people would recognise now that it has been a very worthy mission and decision. Just under 1,200 people have been rescued from boats, some of which were sinking, others had run out of fuel and others, which had men, women, children and infants on board, had no water or food left. Commander Pearse O'Donnell and his crew on the LE Eithneare doing an extraordinarily professional and compassionate job in the Mediterranean and I want to put that on the record of the House. I thank them for the work they are doing on behalf of everybody here.

On the political point that the Deputy made, I want to give him some reassurance. We made a decision to send a ship for a search and rescue mission to partner on a bilateral basis with the Italian navy. That is what we are doing and that is what we had committed to do. If we were to do anything else in that area in terms of linking in with other missions or other political decisions, there would need to be a Government decision on that and, I assume, a debate on it in this House. Certainly, I will inform the House before I do anything like that. I expect the commitment we have made in respect of the LE Eithnewill continue up to the end of September. The LE Eithnewill probably be replaced by another ship in seven or eight weeks' time but we are committed to a search and rescue humanitarian mission which is why we did not, for example, have the triple-lock process applying to this decision. We intend to maintain that as a humanitarian search and rescue mission for the foreseeable future.

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