Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I note that in the Minister's own example he gave there, he spoke of a United Nations force commander, which is one of the examples he gave on Second Stage. The core point is that this may not be a United Nations force commander. I accept there may be some constraints in this framing and the Minister will note that some of my later amendments explicitly deal with certain areas of secondment but in fact leave and have a separate provision for the humanitarian action. That is an example of where we need to have that flexibility. At the moment, as set out in the Bill, the erring is very much on the other side in that it refers to "any force". I urge the Minister to consider constraining that, and I will bring further amendments on Report Stage. It is one thing to say we do not want it simply confined to the United Nations but it is another thing to have it completely wide open in having any force in that space.

We have a concern there. The Minister mentioned the Operation Sophia example and the bilateral operation. That is a very interesting example because it is an example whereby Ireland and the Naval Service were operating with a humanitarian mandate. It then joined Operation Sophia, transferred force command, and the priorities of that mission explicitly moved away from humanitarian search and rescue towards securitisation and intervention with ships. We were told Ireland would have a great influence in ensuring the humanitarian aspect of Operation Sophia would continue. It did not; it stopped.