Austin Deasy
Ceist:15 Mr. Deasy asked the Minister for Defence the number of troops currently deployed in a peace-keeping role in (1) Lebanon and (2) elsewhere in the world.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - UN Peace-Keeping Missions.
There is at present a total of 811 Irish military personnel serving with United Nations peace-keeping missions. 754 of these are serving with UNIFIL and 57 are serving with various other United Nations missions. I had the opportunity to visit those in Lebanon recently.
May I have a breakdown of the remainder please? There are 18 serving with the United Nations Observer Group in Central America — one colonel, two lieutenant colonels and 15 commandants. Numbers and locations are sufficient.
There are 20 serving in the United Nations through a supervision organisation. These are mainly in Israel, Syria and Egypt. In the United Nations Forces in Cyprus there are eight. In the United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission there are eight also. These were the people who went out recently to the zone between Kuwait and Iraq. One member is serving with the United Nations military observer group in India-Pakistan. One observer is serving too, in the office of the Secretary General in Afghanistan-Pakistan and one deputy military adviser on secondment to the Lieutenant Colonel is serving with the United Nations in New York.
May I ask the Minister if we have had any request from the United Nations to make troops available for a peace-keeping role in Iraq, particularly in Northern Iraq, as distinct from the numbers he mentioned on the Iraqi-Kuwait Border?
The question is essentially statistical and matters of policy ought not to arise now.
I am sure the Minister would be delighted to reply.
There are ongoing discussions between the United Nations and ourselves. We have our military adviser in the United Nations. To my knowledge there has not been a direct request for troops for the area mentioned by the Deputy. Any time we get a request it is dealt with speedily and efficiently. The only request was for personnel for the demilitarised zone between Iran and Iraq. I know there has been some informal contact on the matter raised by the Deputy but nothing positive has emerged.