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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 3 May 1962

Vol. 195 No. 2

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Congo Courts-martial.

48.

asked the Minister for Defence what were the charges against the Irish soldiers who were reported to have been court-martialled in Elizabethville recently.

Ten men of the 36th Battalion were charged before limited courts-martial in the Congo on dates between the 20th and 30th March last. The charges against eight of them were concerned with matters of purely military discipline, viz., insubordination, absence without authority, abandoning a post and material, leaving guard without being regularly relieved, asleep on guard, out of bounds, being taken prisoner for want of due precaution.

The remaining two were charged with common assault on two Congolese men and with offences against military discipline.

I merely want to explain the reason for putting down the question was so that the Minister would be able to tell the House that the charges involved were not at all like the blackguardly allegations that were made by certain sections of the British Press.

That is so.

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