I thank my colleagues for the very complimentary remarks they made about the Defence Forces. I appreciate that very much and I will convey those remarks to the Chief of Staff. Notwithstanding the general reluctance of Members to travel, we will look positively on the committee's request to travel to Eritrea. It should be borne in mind that we anticipate our work there will be concluded next June.
Deputy McGinley inquired about special training. Before we have any involvement in UN missions, we send a reconnaissance group, which reports back to us, to the site of the mission. Many aspects of the mission are considered before embarkation. A training course is established which can range from three weeks to several months, depending on experience. We generally favour deploying personnel with experience in conjunction with younger soldiers. All personnel undergo special training courses to prepare them for the circumstances into which they are going. For example, we sent a reconnaissance team to Kosovo before our mission there. It reported on the terrain and the bad roads that would have to be traversed and suggested that we needed new equipment - DROPS - to carry out the mission. We immediately purchased 24 DROPS, specialist equipment that can travel in any terrain, in any conditions and does not require roads. DROPS can carry food, building materials or whatever is required. We are now more prepared and ensure that we have back-up equipment. The next tranche of APCs and anti-armoured equipment is on the way. We need these because our troops will be faced with anti-personnel mines and this gives confidence to the architects of the military regime that the safety of the personnel will be ensured. Safety of personnel is the highest obligation for the Minister of Defence.
UN payments were as follows: €13.59 million in 1997; €9.65 million in 1998; €11.43 million in 1999; €10.03 million in 2000; and €8.38 million in 2001. This year the payment will be €3.4 million. It has gradually improved, but Members should bear in mind that the UN has its own problems in obtaining funding. There may well be some very old bills included in that. Things have improved and we are constantly trying to keep it as up-to-date as possible. It is an expensive business. The Exchequer pays the full cost of a number of the missions and it is important to recoup whatever we can.
Deputy McGinley raised the issue of the problems with the International Criminal Court and the US. We operate under Security Council resolutions and require the triple lock of UN mandate, Government approval and Dáil approval to engage in any mission. This was a problem which affected other contributing nations and would have caused very significant problems for all concerned. I would have been obliged to recall our troops if matters had not been resolved. The problem has been solved, but one cannot forecast what might happen in the future.
Deputy Costello inquired about the direction of peacekeeping and its regional nature. On the first occasion I visited Sarajevo, I recalled the 1,392 days of shelling and the 800 people who were killed crossing a bridge to get food for a starving city. I also recalled the people who spent three or four months digging a tunnel through which they escaped in secret. What was once a people's park on a hillside is now a graveyard for 10,000 people, including 1,800 children. I have always wondered if the international community could not have done something before the events to which I refer occurred. Part of the function of the rapid reaction force - in terms of the effort to streamline activities and work together - is to see if we can intervene earlier. We have tremendous resources, capacity and experience. Why are we going in so late? We went into East Timor when the conflict had been going on for 23 years and one third of the population had been killed. In the village of Fataluro there were 300 villagers and one school with 50 children, a clay floor, one teacher, no pictures, no paint, no pencils, no exercise, nothing. We went in 23 years after it started.
We urge people to understand that we are not joining NATO or any alliances. Ireland is an independent, sovereign country. We must obtain the approval of the Dáil, the Government and the people for what we do in our UN mandated missions. We should ask ourselves serious questions about what has happened. Most of the Deputies will be familiar with what I mean as it is recent history, although one could go back further and pick out other examples. Peacekeeping now has so many different aspects. Compliments and thanks were given for our humanitarian activities, but there is so much to do. We want to build up democracies and improve judicial systems, local authorities, sanitary and water systems and housing. People are trying to find a place for themselves.
Eritrea was mentioned. It has one of the poorest peoples in the world, with 60,000 widows after the war with Ethiopia, 90,000 people without arms and legs in poor hospital facilities and thousands of orphaned children. Something should have been done earlier - that is the principle under which we operate. In a very quick answer for Deputy Costello, we go wherever there is a need, wherever the UN mandate comes from, not especially in Europe, although we have European obligations. There are parts of Africa to which we would like to go, indeed there are many places one would like to go if there were the necessary resources. We want to keep beefing up and improving our work and to keep as many people as we can engaged in these activities. When we get a request from the UN we take it seriously. We do things on a case by case basis, but nine times out of ten when we get a request we go. As I see it - expressing the view of all my colleagues - wherever the need is greatest, wherever we can make a contribution, we will go.
Deputy Ó Fearghaíl mentioned future engagements. Many things need to be done: a camp must be set up and we need to make sure that we have as good accommodation as we can manage. It takes a little time to do that, so our engineering staff and the people going out have a lot of work to do in the beginning. We have purchased Corimacs, which are fantastic pieces of equipment which can be parcelled and opened quickly to set up beds, desks and everything. They are warm in the winter and cool in the summer. They cost about £1 million each and we purchase as many as we can so that wherever we go we can get in quickly, set up an operation and get going.
I support the UN school. People have heard me saying this before, but the first time I went to the Curragh I was ashamed of the place. Geographically, the school is very accessible and it helps to sell Ireland abroad. Last year we had courses there attended by people of 17 nationalities. This shows the extent to which our 40 years of experience in the UN is appreciated - people want to feed into it. We also learn from our experiences and our interactions with other countries. How do we improve things? We do want to improve them? We have spent about €54 million on the Curragh in the last four or five years improving the place generally, including accommodation. This was necessary and the entire ambience is improving. I want it to be a bit more spectacular and a place that really sells Ireland and our UN activities. The Deputies will be glad to hear that we will continue to move in that direction.
I could not agree more with Deputy McGrath regarding the UN. We want to keep the strength of the UN, warts and all, as the Deputy said. The international community and the way we have been able to work so far meets our needs. We must be constantly vigilant to see to what extent our contribution and experience can enhance that worldwide activity. I agree with the Deputy, even though there did not appear to be a consistent view coming across in the Nice referendum. I would have liked to have heard the Deputy say something like that before rather than after the vote.
