Results 5,101-5,120 of 40,897 for speaker:Simon Coveney

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: To be helpful to the House, the following has been pointed out to me and is worth mentioning. There are already quite strict limitations in law on the roles and functions for which the Defence Forces can be deployed overseas. If you look at the 2006 Act, under section 3, it is quite clear on this: (1) A contingent or member of the Permanent Defence Force may, with the prior approval of and...

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: We are taking in many more than 500, I am glad to say.

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: I know the Senator is aware of how peacekeeping missions actually work but it is important to put on the record that, first, we do not decide on the mandate of UN missions. The UN decides on it. We influence that through the UN process. In fact, we have been very successful at influencing a slight change in the mandate of our largest mission, that is, the United Nations Interim Force in...

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: I am not saying the Senator is opposing it. I am just outlining the steps that are taken for anybody who is listening. The suggestion seems to have been made that we need to have an Oireachtas check and balance over a delegation we have given for many years. We are now simply putting in a good piece of legislation for the practice that currently takes place. The Senator said repeatedly...

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: Can the Senator give me an example? I am trying to understand what the concern is here. What kinds of missions is the Senator concerned about in places where we currently have a presence?

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: We did not have a mandate; there was no mandate.

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: There was no formal arrangement; that was the problem.

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: I want to make a final point. First, we are involved in Operation Sophia and we have Defence Force personnel - I believe there are three of them; certainly, there are two naval officers - in the headquarters of the operation. The reason we do not have a ship in the Mediterranean is that we do not have the crewing resources and so on to do so right now. Unfortunately, some of our ships are...

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: I will read my written response to these amendments but also respond verbally to Senator Higgins. I understand the point she is making but there are other roles to be considered. For example, we have a military representative in Brussels and in New York. We can have a military representative to the OSCE. These representatives are not on humanitarian missions. I can second someone to an...

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: So does the UN.

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: If the Senator takes some of the organisations that I mentioned previously – NATO, the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, the African Union, SADC, ASEAN, they are all organisations that have at different times been involved with NATO on certain projects but currently, as far as I know, probably are not. Perhaps one or two of them are, but most of them are not. We do...

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: When the Senator previously mentioned NATO, she mentioned it in the context that it is an organisation we should never be working with.

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: We can agree on that.

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: How is NATO different? If we were considering this while NATO was working under a UN mandate on a project in Afghanistan, under the Senator's amendment, NATO would have been an organisation we could work with. However, under the Senator's proposed amendment, as soon as that UN mandate is over we could no longer work with NATO.

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: How does that make sense? The organisation does not change.

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: We are talking about-----

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: Sorry. We are talking about seconding people here.

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: I am listening to Senator Higgins. However, let us not layer in the issues around delegation of command to force commanders with the issues of secondments into international organisations, whether it is the African Union, the European Union, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, or whoever. These are entirely different issues. We have had good debate with a...

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: I take that point. I may be exaggerating for effect to make a point. However, that scenario could be interpreted by the Senator's amendments. I know she makes a distinction between sending a contingent of Defence Force personnel on a peacekeeping mission, or an intervention mission of some sort, with postings. The wording of the Senator's proposed amendments, however, do not make that...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Departmental Contracts (20 Oct 2021)

Simon Coveney: My Department has not held meetings or conducted correspondence with the company referred to by the Deputy nor has it engaged the services of that company for any purposes from 1 January 2017 to date.