Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are no plans to send any Irish naval vessels abroad for now. We have challenges in the Naval Service at the moment in terms of recruitment and retention. We have work to do to get our personnel strength up to where it needs to be so we have the flexibility to be able to send a vessel from our naval fleet perhaps to another part of the world, should it be justified to do so, should it be consistent with a UN mandate and should it have the approval of this House and the Government. That is just like we did when we sent a ship to the Mediterranean which, at the time when we did it, did not require a triple lock because it was a humanitarian intervention, as it happens, but I think it was strongly supported by everybody in this House, given the work they were doing.

On the EPF, we were very involved in shaping that to ensure there were two separate funds, one that could be used for lethal weapons and the other that would not be. It was on the basis of having that distinction in the EPF that Ireland supported it. Ireland, Austria and Malta were the three countries which ensured that and we will, of course, make sure that the system for how that money is spent has integrity.

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