Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Fianna Fáil will support this motion. We are taking the advice of military management, which has carried out in-depth reconnaissance of precautions in this region. However, as the Minister of State indicated, we must be extremely careful and mitigate the risk to the 14 members of the Army Ranger Wing who are going there.

Fundamentally, we believe that Ireland can play an important role with others - I think the Minister mentioned 50 countries - in restoring peace to this hostile region and ending the human rights violations committed against innocent civilians. However, we have a number of concerns and issues around this deployment that I will outline these later. Hopefully, we can get clarity on them from the Minister of State.

First, I feel the need to point out that it is almost one week on from my party's motion on improving pay and conditions for the Defence Forces, a motion the Government, unfortunately, opposed. Today we see exactly why my party, many other members of the Opposition and others have been fighting so hard for improved rights of the men and women of our Defence Forces and their families. Today we see the unique nature of the work undertaken by our Defence Forces and why they deserve so much more respect and dignity than this Government has shown them. This debate gives me the opportunity to remind the Minister of State that there is already considerable cynicism within the general defence community regarding the optics of how our Defence Forces are paraded when it is politically convenient. The Minister of State needs to match his words with actual respect for the Defence Forces. Words ring hollow and action is what is needed in the area of improving pay, allowance and conditions for the Defence Forces. This is why he needs to move on the Public Service Pay Commission report and provide serious clarity on what is a very worrying backdrop.

In this context, it is difficult to comprehend how the Minister of State can maintain his callous and heartless position on Defence Forces pay when one examines the MINUSMA mission carefully. It is an extremely dangerous mission in a high-risk environment. Almost 200 lives have been lost since peacekeepers first went into the area in 2013. We know this region is a hotbed for terrorist activity and a recruiting ground for ISIS and Al Qaeda in addition to the ongoing civil infighting. This is the environment where we are considering sending the Army ranger wing, to which the Minister of State has refused to award allowances due even after court adjudications that ruled in its favour. As I said last week, this is a shameful situation to be in in 2019. The Army ranger wing, like the rest of the Defence Forces, cannot wait any longer. The Minister of State saw last week the resounding support that exists in this House for allowances to be restored without any further delay. The entire Defence Forces community will take a very dim view if the Minister of State rejects the will of this House and continues to treat the Defence Forces with a lack of respect.

Regarding Mali, we acknowledge the serious risk of contagion to Europe and beyond posed by the instability in this area as well as the serious human rights violations, the people trafficking and the significant loss of innocent life. We also take very seriously and value very highly the advice of military management, which has undertaken careful reconnaissance work in the region. For the record of this House, we need the Minister of State to outline how long it was there, the engagement it had and the level of mitigation for our deployment. The advice of military management is that our elite Army ranger wing can play an important role in restoring peace in this area. Its expertise is designed and high level of training is carried out for scenarios precisely like this one. This is why we have an elite Army ranger wing, that is, so we can protect the world's most vulnerable people. I also note the Defence Forces general staff is satisfied that robust precautions are in place to ensure the safety of our Defence Forces members.

This mission is comparable to previous deployments of our Defence Forces and in particular, the Army ranger wing. This includes the incredible work undertaken in Sierra Leone and over a decade ago in Chad where Irish peacekeepers played a key role in the protection of thousands of refugees and displaced people fleeing war, ensured the safety of UN officials and oversaw the delivery of humanitarian aid and food. The Army ranger wing specifically provided security during the construction of the Irish base and conducted key long-range patrols in specialist reconnaissance vehicles. It also engaged in destroying unexploded viable devices.

However, there are a number of areas that require clarification. We need more information on why we are engaging at this time. Could the Minister of State outline the diplomatic context and contacts he has had? What has changed? Why is there now an opening for the Army ranger wing when there was none previously? It has been said we will be operating as part of a larger intelligence surveillance reconnaissance company. What does this mean? Could the Minister of State provide information? I understand from research in the area that there is a significant German deployment in the area. How will that work? How will the Army ranger wing integrate with that German deployment? Could the Minister of State provide clarity on the cohort with which the Army ranger wing will be working? How will the army ranger wing fit into the overall operation? It will be a smaller unit within a larger group. There has been some concern because a smaller unit is going. Could the Minister of State clarify whether that increases the risks for that unit compared to a larger deployment? Could he provide information on how that compares with other deployments of the Army ranger wing? How long is it envisaged that it will be posted on this mission? Is there an end date?

The Minister of State also needs to give us more information on the UN resolution we are going in under. I understand the existing resolution underpinned by this motion will expire in about a week and a half. The fact that we are voting on a resolution that has yet to be passed by the UN is unusual in the context of the triple lock and its integrity. Will that UN resolution mirror the current one because I understand the context and wording of UN resolutions can change every year? This underpins the priorities, focus and very nature of the deployment. The integrity of the triple lock necessitates that if there is substantive change to the resolution regarding MINUSMA, we need to debate this again because that would change the actual deployment so it is important that the Minister of State provides some background on any change in the resolution and how that would affect the motion on which we are voting today. We also need to ensure that this mission does not hollow out domestic security operations with the Army ranger wing already depleted despite the Minister of State committing to increasing its capability in the White Paper. These are important questions on which I would appreciate further clarification.

One thing we know is that the situation in Mali will not resolve itself. People will continue to suffer and die without international intervention. Women and children will continue to be the targets of awful atrocities until peace is restored. The easy thing to do would be to stand back and let someone else do it. That seems to be what some in this House will argue for. That is wrong and morally reprehensible. Ireland has a long history and tradition of peacekeeping and I continue to envisage Ireland as a country committed to an "active neutrality". We are world renowned for efforts in keeping and restoring peace in some of the world's most dangerous places and we in this House and beyond should all be very proud of this legacy. We need to help the poorest and most vulnerable people in some of the most underdeveloped countries in the world.

We have a responsibility to share with others who may benefit from the lessons of our experience of peace building on this island and peacekeeping on the international stage in the Middle East and Africa. When we have highly trained personnel with the skill and expertise to make a difference and play a key role in trying to bring about peace and protect basic human rights, it is right that we play a more proactive role. However, we must ensure that this deployment of the Army ranger wing is a safe one, that maximum assurances are given around the mitigation of risks and that the Minister of State clarifies some of the questions around the operation of the future resolution and the smaller deployment in the context of the larger integration within this UN mission because the most important thing is that when we deploy our troops, we have ensured that robust reconnaissance is adhered to and we protect our troops in the context of this deployment.

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