Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I very much welcome this Bill. While it has been practice, it is important that it is also put in a legislative framework and that is what this Bill does. Even though the practices have been in place for a long number of years, it is important that it is now covered by legislation. It is about the delegation by the Minister of a limited degree of control and authority over a Defence Forces contingent deployed as part of an international force to the force commander of that force. It is important that that is set out clearly and that is what the Bill does.

It deals also with the issue of age of enlistment. There has not been a practice of taking in people under 18 but I understand that many years ago, people as young as 14 or 15 were taken into the Army band. That practice has changed and the legislation now deals with the issue so we are complying with the Convention on the Rights of the Child by putting it in legislation.

As someone who has had the privilege of visiting an Irish Army operation overseas, it is only when one goes to an operation that one sees the challenges that the Irish Defence Forces face. I had the privilege of travelling, on my own initiative, to the Sudanese border in Chad. Even though that operation was under a UN mandate, it was an EU operation. It was about providing protection for 570,000 people in refugee camps and internally-displaced persons, IDP, sites. I saw the challenges our Defence Forces had to face. Everyone in the area carried a gun and not just an ordinary gun but a machine gun. That was the kind of challenge the Irish Army had to deal with in an area where temperature were ranging between 40°C and 50°C. It was a really challenging climate and a really challenging time. It is only when one sees this that one sees the contribution of the Defence Forces. We were lucky in that operation, insofar as even though it was an international deployment of troops, it was under the control of an Irish commanding officer at that time, and they did it very successfully.

After visiting that site, it was interesting to be at a committee of the European Parliament and to hear a member of the British army giving a report of the operation and saying that the Irish Army had achieved more in six months than the army from another country which had been in Chad for over 30 years. In other words, the Irish Army had achieved more in six months in actually getting people to work together rather than getting into a conflict situation. When one hears that at an international level, one sees that the way the Irish Army work is about involving everyone but making decisions which are of benefit to people and people who are in the community. We really need to give recognition to the work right across the world to which they have contributed.

I concur with what a lot of Members have said about a review of pay and conditions. They have made a major contribution in Ireland over a long time at local, national and international level and we need to give recognition to that.

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