Irish troops and gardai may join aid effort

Irish soldiers and gardaí could be sent to aid relief efforts in the stricken countries, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Ahern, has said.

On RTÉ's Six One news last night, Mr Ahern said he would not rule out sending Irish military and gardaí to the disaster areas, where a number of Irish citizens remain missing, if he was requested.

However, his Department had been told by non-governmental organisations on the ground that most of the countries in question already had large military resources in place, he said.

"It's something that we wouldn't rule out at all. We haven't been asked for it but a lot of the countries have already got significant armies and personnel in that respect."

The authorities in Phuket, Thailand, in particular were responding very well in the initial stages of the relief operation, he said, and Irish assistance might be more useful at a later stage.

"Now it's the initial issue of dealing with what is an awful disaster, bodies everywhere and what to do with those, and the issue of disease and that's the initial issue that has to be dealt with and dealt with very quickly.

"Then there's the more medium to long-term issue of putting these countries back into some order, if that's possible."

Earlier yesterday, Mr Ahern said about 700 Irish citizens were on holiday or resident in the nine countries across the Bay of Bengal when the disaster struck on St Stephen's Day.

A substantial number of those had been located or contacted relatives.

However, between 10 and 20 people had yet to be accounted for, Mr Ahern confirmed.

"You are talking about dozens perhaps unaccounted for, not missing, unaccounted for, and what we are trying to do is home in on those," he said.

Problems with the communications systems were hampering attempts to establish the status of the missing Irish, he said.

Mr Ahern renewed his appeal for people with relatives in southern Asia to contact the Department of Foreign Affairs if they have heard news from them.