A number of Army Rangers and military construction staff arrived back from Chad earlier today after a delay of around 50 hours.
The 110-strong party was supposed to be back on Monday but was held up after a technical fault with an aircraft led to a cancellation of the flight plans.
The 50 soldiers from the Army Ranger Wing had been in Chad since mid-February, while the construction personnel have been there since April 24th to help prepare the Irish Camp Ciara base.
Camp Ciara will be headquarters for the 400 Irish troops participating in the European peace enforcement mission (Eufor) in the Chad-Darfur border region.
Minister for Defence Willie O’Dea is to pay his first official visit to Irish troops serving in Chad next week.
He is expected to use the three-day trip to meet military and diplomatic leaders and help boost the morale of the 550 soldiers on the year-long Eufor mission.
The soldiers in the troubled African state are protecting about 400,000 refugees who have fled the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan.