Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I absolutely disagree with Deputy Niamh Smyth. If members of the Defence Forces were patrolling local communities across the Border region, it would totally send out the wrong message. Such a deployment would be absolutely and completely inappropriate. I am personally opposed to it. As already stated, if An Garda Síochána requests that members of the Defence Forces be deployed in order to aid the civil power, such a request would - like all requests - be considered. After the successful Brexit negotiations last week, I genuinely feel that we are in a space that I thought would be difficult to get to whereby there is not going to be a hard border and whereby people, North and South, will be able to continue doing business in the way they have done in recent years. I remember when members of the Defence Forces were stationed on the southern side of the Border and British forces stationed on the northern side. It was not a pretty sight.

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