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

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 that Irish people and the Oireachtas are very proud of the role that Irish peacekeepers have held for many decades. I am glad they are because I am very proud of it. What we are doing in this legislation, however, is maintaining the same approach we have taken across those decades in terms of what has been a delegation process, which was not written into legislation. That has now been corrected. We are not, therefore, putting anything new in here. What is being suggested with the amendments is that we put something new in here, that is, an extra check and balance, which requires a Minister to come through the Oireachtas and limits him or her to giving a delegation for more than eight months. As it happens, we have rotations every six months for the UN missions, which require a new delegation each time. Every time I inspect a battalion, therefore, which I did yesterday in County Limerick with the one that is on its way to join UNIFIL in southern Lebanon in the next few weeks, under the new leadership, that will require a new delegation that will allow the force commander to work with that contingent in the way he or she has done for many years.

Let us be clear. This is not a policy decision involved in the delegation that needs scrutiny, checks and balance and so on. This is something we have done for many years. It is simply a practical arrangement that allows countries that are sending troops to a UN-mandated mission, under a force commander who has been chosen by the UN, to ensure that they can operate under that command structure. Senator Craughwell is correct. If the lead officer in the Irish contingent at any point feels that Irish troops are being asked to do something that is outside the mandate or that he or she is uncomfortable with doing, there is a check and balance here that can allow him or her to effectively call a stop to that.

It is not like I am giving an instruction allowing a force commander to do things outside a UN mandate or in the case of non-UN-mandated missions. I am simply using the same principle to allow a force commander to be able to operate a large contingent to keep everybody safe and perform the mission they are being asked to do.

Senator Higgins knows much of that but perhaps other people listening may think this is some new piece of legislation that allows a Minister for Defence to do new things or send Irish troops to parts of the world under the command of foreign force commanders and, somehow, that is new. It is not. This is putting into legislation what we have been doing for decades and simply putting a proper legal structure around it with all the safeguards that come with that.