Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In issuing the Jadotville medal in December 2017, the State took the first step towards righting a 56-year-old wrong against the men of A Company 35th Infantry Battalion, who served with distinction under fire in the Congo in 1961. Shortly before the medal was presented to the surviving men and to the families of those who had passed since the men returned to Ireland in 1961, one of the survivors, John Gorman, said:

The families of the deceased members worry me because they should get an apology from the government for what was done. Their fathers and brothers went to their graves branded as cowards.

We should be thankful that, due to the efforts of John Gorman, other soldiers, supporters, the publication of books on the episode and Richie Smyth's brilliant film "The Siege of Jadotville", based on Declan Power's book, nobody can be in any doubt about the scale of the bravery and courage of the 158 men under the leadership of Commandant Pat Quinlan when besieged by several thousand members of the Katangese forces. Neither would anybody be in any doubt about the unworthy man who was a UN official at the time, Conor Cruise O'Brien. The collective bravery of the men of A Company and the foresight of Commandant Quinlan ensured that no soldier lost his life during the four-day siege and that, in fact, the unit inflicted great casualties on the attacking forces, including 300 dead and nearly 1,000 wounded, no thanks to Conor Cruise O'Brien and the UN, who were supposed to have their back.

I am asking the Minister of State to intervene because next year marks 60 years since the attack on this small UN force stationed in a small outpost at Jadotville in the then Katanga region of the Congo. The citations from Commandant Quinlan recommended the issuing of 27 distinguished service medals and five military medals for gallantry. It is worth remembering the circumstances of what occurred. The unit of 158 soldiers included many teenagers. John Gorman was 17 at the time and he recalled the chaplain, Joseph Fagan, giving the soldiers the last rites in the defensive trenches they had dug around their outpost. In the understatement of the century, he has said it was "a bit scary". The detachment was ill-equipped for the mission and abandoned to face a vastly numerically superior force. As another survivor, Noel Carey, recalled, after four days in the 100° F heat under fire:

We had to work very hard on morale to try and get some of the lads together because it was probably the biggest shock we had. We didn’t expect to be attacked, we didn’t expect to be mortared, we didn’t expect to be machine-gunned but by God we never expected that we were going to be attacked by a jet aircraft.

Noel Carey also quotes Captain Liam Donnelly as saying, "There was just chaos in the beginning", and: "The NCOs were brilliant and they were able to retaliate and fire back.” Carey has also said:

[We] were having a pretty heavy night. It was the first time the lads had been under fire. They were jittery

That is the context but Noel Carey also said afterwards: "Pat Quinlan saved all our skins and brought all his troops safely. He just didn’t get the credit he should have got."

This was a reflection of good military training, discipline and leadership and a testimony to the calibre of the men in question. They did not deserve the disrespect they got when they returned, their second abandonment. As Regimental Sergeant Major Noel O'Callaghan has previously stated, we should "have the moral courage to right this wrong of the past". It is time to issue these much-deserved medals to at least the 32 men recommended by Commandant Quinlan.

See this speech in context