Aengus Ó Snodaigh
Question:293. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence the reason he attended a NATO summit in Warsaw in July 2016. [39066/16]
View answerWednesday, 7 December 2016
Questions (293)
Written answers
Ireland’s cooperation with NATO is conducted through the Partnership for Peace (PfP) which we joined in 1999 following approval by Dáil Éireann. Ireland’s purpose in participating in the PfP is to improve Defence Forces capabilities and to ensure that our Defence Forces are interoperable with the forces of other States engaged in UN mandated crisis management operations. Ireland’s continued participation in Partnership for Peace was reaffirmed in the White Paper on Defence, which was published last year.
Defence Ministers from partners and allies participating in the Interoperability Platform were invited to attend a meeting of participating States at the Warsaw summit in July 2016. As a participant in the PfP, Ireland is also a member of the Partnership Interoperability Platform. For Ireland, this Platform provides a format for consulting and working on common interoperability challenges to enhance our ability to operate with partners in future crisis management operations. I attended this meeting last July given the importance of interoperability for force protection and effectiveness on operations.