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

I am just dealing with the general point. When we sent ships to the Mediterranean Sea, I was the Minister who made that decision. Some people did not agree with that at the time but it turned out to be an extremely valuable mission for the Defence Forces, particularly the Naval Service, and also for some 18,000 people who were taken from the sea by our personnel. That was, in the first instance, a humanitarian mission to which Ireland signed up, working on a bilateral basis with Italy. It was simply no longer possible to work on a bilateral basis with Italy once Operation Sophia was set up, particularly as Italy was central to that operation. We did not have the option to keep doing what we were doing. We had the option to leave or to stay involved in a new and more structured mission. I felt, on balance, that it made sense to stay. You have to work with what you have in front of you in terms of what is possible and the partners who are willing to work with you. You cannot operate in isolation on your own in the Mediterranean Sea. That is what happened there.

The point being made by the Senator on the delegation of powers to a force commander is fair. There is no actual change in practice regarding what happens today. When I choose to send troops to UNIFIL in southern Lebanon, we have to transfer a certain amount of power to the force commander of UNIFIL so that he or she can ensure there is proper co-ordination between the countries involved in contributing troops across the board to the mission. I believe this can involved up to 15 countries. The position is the same in the context of UNDOF and with the mission in Mali to which we have deployed personnel. You have to have a force commander who has a leadership function that co-ordinates across all countries. That transfer of power, however, must be limited within the confines of what I outlined earlier in order to ensure that Irish troops are still the responsibility of the Irish leadership and Irish officers. If there is a military police investigation, the matter would be handed back to the Irish system to conclude investigations and so on.

The Senator's question was a fair one but I wish to reassure her. This issue also came up in the Dáil when people wanted to understand what we are actually doing here, namely, if we were giving away power to a force commander from another country who could ask Irish soldiers to do things that they were not comfortable doing. The answer to that question is "No". That circumstance is not going to happen because force commanders must operate within a UN mandate. Believe me, for UNIFIL, UNDOF or other UN missions, this is a pretty clear mandate given by the UN. This is what the force commander has to manage. Within that, we are responsible for the welfare of Irish troops and the role that they play. There has to be a leadership balance between the force commander and a lead officer that ultimately has responsibility for the Irish troops when they are abroad.