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

The Deputy is right, as the mission in which we are involved at present is a training mission, but there are multiple missions in Mali. There is a bilateral mission with a series of African countries in the Sahel region, in which France is involved. There is also a European mission and a UN mission. Prior to the attacks in Paris, we had completed a piece of reconnaissance work on Mali generally. As to whether we could look at a relatively minor increase in our presence there to do more and to share the resources and knowledge we have, the reconnaissance we did will be very useful to measure what we could do within the acceptable risk parameters of peacekeeping. It is important to remind people that none of our peacekeeping operations are in easy zones. The reason peacekeepers are needed is because these are difficult conflict areas which need our help, and Mali is no different. I assure the Deputy we will not send Irish troops anywhere without the appropriate assessments, and there will be no knee-jerk reactions to anything.

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