United Nations
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-16
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Helen McEntee (FG), Meath East

In relation to the final question, not every incident is necessarily relayed or the subject of a complaint made in terms of overall complaints to UNIFIL and the Israel Defense Forces concerning military fire, whether on Irish personnel or otherwise. This information is not ordinarily provided by the UN. There are situations and scenarios where we have made complaints and have raised this. Again, that is something I highlighted with the Lebanese minister for foreign affairs yesterday as essential - not only that civilians are protected but also that those peacekeeping troops, our troops, who are doing fantastic work on the ground, are protected and that the Lebanese army as well is there to support them. I think the next couple of months will be challenging but I reassure the Deputy and everybody else that, as our troops scale back and scale down over the next year, they will continue their peacekeeping mission, they will continue doing the fantastic work they are trained to do and, at all stages, the situation will continue to be assessed. I have spoken to the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces about this. He has been very clear that, as the mission scales back, our troops will be kept safe, and if changes need to be made in how they carry out their work, that will happen. However, we need to look beyond next year. I hope there will be a space for Irish peacekeeping troops as well as other troops to be able to fill that space in some way and to continue to have a presence on the ground, which, given the security situation, I think will still be needed.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-16