Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Michael Healy-Rae. As Ruadhán Mac Cormaic wrote in The Irish Times on Saturday, the Government has quietly announced plans to send about a dozen members of the Army ranger wing to Mali to join a counter-terrorism operation, which Mac Cormaic states is highly unusual. This mission is widely regarded as the most dangerous United Nations mission in the world. I hope the Minister of State will listen to that. As I understand it, MINUSMA is made up of more than 15,000 military and police personnel from 50 countries. With an annual budget of $1 billion, it is the third biggest ongoing UN so-called peacekeeping operation. As Ruadhán Mac Cormaic noted, it is also the deadliest. In the past five years, 177 peacekeepers have been killed, including 16 so far this year, by gun attacks, home-made car bombs and improvised explosive devices. It is one of the deadliest of all time. This makes it clear that we are sending our troops into a situation that resembles a war rather than a peacekeeping operation. That is quite clear to anybody.

It has to be said that missions like these, however they might be justified, raise real and serious concerns around our neutrality. The Minister of State should listen to the last speaker and to other speakers. We have taken our heads out of the sand and opened our eyes and ár gcluasa freisin. I know that it is the Government's perception that this does not infringe on our neutrality and that the triple lock system guarantees against this, but that is not how those fighting in these disputes will see it, the people between whom we are trying to keep the peace.

They will not see that as Ireland being neutral. Islamist groups involved in this conflict have no interest in the finer details regarding Ireland's neutrality. They will see an elite wing of the Irish Army acting against them and, as a result, the Irish State will be considered their enemy. Apart from the peacekeeping aspect of the mission, this has wider implications for Ireland as a so-called neutral country. I put it to the Minister of State that we are blind to this.

I seriously question the appropriateness of becoming involved in conflicts of this nature, particularly in light of the news last week that 3,200 personnel left the Permanent Defence Force between 2014 and 2018. That equates to 34.7% of the average strength for those years, with 82% of these being premature voluntary retirements. The Minister of State has been asleep at the wheel or else he is so arrogant that he cannot see the issues or empathise with these good and dedicated soldiers and their families. We also heard that the personnel turnover rate in the Permanent Defence Force now stands at 9% overall, with a rate of 14% in the Naval Service, and that there were 256 discharges in the first four months of 2019. What is the Minister of State presiding over? Why does he not engage and get down to listening to the real problems? The 266 discharges in the first four months of 2019 were by far the largest number since the reorganisation of 2012. In April there were 86 discharges, a figure not previously matched in a single month. Has the Minister of State no concerns in this regard or does he not care? Is he not interested? Is the Government so arrogant that it cannot see this?

Clearly, the crisis we have at home is bad enough without adding to it by deploying members of our armed forces abroad in a move that may actually do serious harm to Ireland's declared policy of neutrality. I ask the Minister of State to reconsider the position. I cannot support this deployment. I support the peacekeepers all over the world. They have done great work over the years. This, however, is not a peacekeeping mission. Many other Deputies have espoused the reasons that different countries' forces are deployed on this mission. However, those countries are not neutral and have never claimed to be. They are not standing idly by. They are involved on one side or another and are arming and supporting some of the militias. This mission is fraught with danger. It would far better for the Minister of State to get the Army to provide support to An Garda Síochána in dealing with the thuggery that goes on in the capital city and in dealing with murders that occur on weekly basis. If Army personnel were acting providing support in this way, it would allow them to be at home with their wives and families. They could use their expertise to keep the peace in order that people might sleep in their beds at night and to help prevent murders taking place every second day. There are armed vagabonds who are robbing and beating up older people throughout the country. The Army could certainly act as back-up to An Garda Síochána. The Garda is the first line, but we need the Permanent Defence Force at home and we need to ensure that their safety is respected also.

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