Defence Forces Dail Éireann — 2023-11-21 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central I am conscious that the case is under way. Hezbollah is a major force in Lebanon. That must be acknowledged as well. A new government has not been formed in Lebanon in quite a long time. That is not helpful either. The situation generally in Lebanon, with the collapse of the economy and the currency, mean there is a significant need for stability in the country. We have been long-term peacekeepers in Lebanon. The presence of peacekeepers generally is in areas which are challenging and difficult, by definition. That remains the case. It is even more so now in respect of the heightened tensions as a result of the Israeli-Hamas engagement and the danger of that spreading to Lebanon. We are very conscious of that and we have been working very hard to avoid a regional escalation of the conflict. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-11-21/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:25+00:00 Sitting date: 2023-11-21