Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2021-09-28
============================================================

Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

They have joined a German-commanded force. The key point is that this is slippage. Where is the clarity about our UN and humanitarian mandates? How can we reinforce this, given the discretion that the Minister asks us to give him under section 2 of the Bill to allow operational control to be delegated? The limitations and exemptions that the Minister mentions relate to important issues regarding the security of forces, the safety of staff and the reallocation of services but I want to see safeguards, limitations and exemptions relating to mandate. We need to bolster it.
My final point is that 82% of people in Ireland support our role as a neutral, peacebuilding country in the most recent poll on that. It is important that we remember and reinforce that because it strengthens our role internationally.

---

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/seanad/2021-09-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-09-28