United Nations
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-16
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Helen McEntee (FG), Meath East

Unfortunately, at this present time, there are no requests for us to participate in any other UN peacekeeping missions. I know that if you are not part of a mission at the outset, the scope for you to join afterwards is significantly impacted in terms of the number of personnel and the types of role you can take on.
In regard to the mission in the Middle East that I mentioned, I would be concerned about the possibility of what happened with Operation Irini and UNIFIL, where the UN mandates were not renewed, happening there. We would suddenly have 12 personnel - it is quite a small number, but still 12 personnel - who were not able to partake in the mission. There is a smaller number in Syria.
What we have at the moment are a number of posts that are filled in the UN, the EU and NATO as part of Partnership for Peace, and in the OSCE headquarters as well. There are also various training missions that we are part of, many of which are through the Common Security and Defence Policy, CSDP, so they are not UN-mandated through Security Council meetings.
At the moment, there are no requests or plans to participate in missions. The most significant mission we have is UNIFIL. That work is under way and those conversations are happening at the moment.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:17+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-16