Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 November 2023
192. Deputy Sorca Clarke asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence to provide clarity and additional information on the statement made by the Minister of State at the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and at the Department of Education (details supplied). [47894/23]
View answerA key priority for me, as Minister for Defence, is to ensure that the capabilities of the Defence Forces are maintained, developed and enhanced in order to ensure that they can carry out all of the roles assigned to them by Government, as set out in the White Paper on Defence.
Engagement in Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) projects is one of the ways in which we can achieve capability development. Ireland joined PESCO in 2017 and our engagement in PESCO projects is completely voluntary. We decide what projects we engage in; all current projects that we participate in align with our national capability needs, this will be the case for future projects in which Ireland will engage.
Currently Ireland is a full participant in four projects and has Observer status on a further twenty-one projects.
The four projects in which we are participating are - (1) Deployable Military Disaster Relief Capability Package (DM-DRCP); (2) Upgrade of Maritime Surveillance (UMS); (3) Maritime (semi-) Autonomous Systems for Mine Countermeasures (MAS MCM); (4) Cyber Threats and Incident Response Information Sharing Platform (CTISP).
The establishment of PESCO represents a further development in EU Cooperation in support of international peace and security under CSDP. PESCO is underpinned by cooperation; Member States come together in to develop additional capabilities and enablers for peacekeeping and crisis management operations.
My Department and the Defence Forces analyse PESCO Projects on a regular basis and make recommendations to me where there is value in Ireland engaging. It is often the case that PESCO projects are large scale projects which encompass research and development, Ireland cannot achieve capabilities in these large scale areas alone. It makes complete sense to work with other Member States to develop capabilities of mutual interest.
Our participation in PESCO projects is reflective of what brings the most value to Defence Forces capabilities and I support our Defence Forces being more ambitious in this regard. As future capabilities needs are identified, PESCO projects will form the basis of evaluating how we can reach those capabilities collaboratively with other EU Member States.
