Dáil approval required to send troops abroad

Sending eight Irish soldiers to Mali is sleight of hand by the Government.

The ‘triple lock’ that applies to Irish soldiers serving overseas involves approval by UN, the Irish government and Dáil Eireann. The Government is evading this triple-lock mechanism by sending small groups (up to 12 soldiers) on inappropriate foreign missions, such as the NATO Afghan occupation, where seven Irish soldiers are serving. Other such missions, for which Dáil approval is not sought, are in the Congo, Kosovo, Somalia and Western Sahara, involving 40 soldiers.

Many of these are not UN peacekeeping missions, but support Western military aggression against impoverished peoples. Irish army involvement in the NATO-Afghan mission is the most inappropriate. Soldiers from NATO countries in Afghanistan, in collusion with the CIA, captured hundreds of ‘terrorists’ and sent them to prisons, such as Guantanamo, where many were tortured. On Feb 13, five Afghan children were killed in a NATO airstrike.