THE COST to the State of Irish troops serving in the Chad peace-keeping mission has beeen about €57 million in the first year of its operation, Minister for Defence Willie O’Dea has revealed.
The Cabinet is expected to consider today the transfer of the troops from the existing European Union-led force to the United Nations “blue hat’’ mission, beginning next month. The Dáil will then approve the move by way of a motion.
Mr O’Dea said that unlike a UN blue hat-type operation, all the costs of deployment, repatriation, rotation and sustainment, together with strategic and in-theatre tactical lift of the contingent, were met by each of the relevant troop-contributing countries.
“The only costs met by contributions from EU member states are generally the costs of establishing and operating the headquarters’ facilities,’’ said Mr O’Dea.
The Minister said the EU military mission to Chad and the Central African Republic, established under the authority of a UN Security Council resolution, was formally launched in January of last year. A total of 425 Defence Forces personnel, 18 of whom are based at the operational headquarters in Paris, are involved in the mission.
The Minister said that last month the Security Council had unanimously adopted a resolution authorising the deployment of a military component of the UN mission to follow on from the EU mission.
Replying to a series of Dáil questions, Mr O’Dea said the Government had approved, in principle, the continued participation of Defence Forces members in the mission with a contingent similar in size and nature to its existing contribution.
“In that decision, the Government decided that its final approval will depend on the extent to which other current EU member states will contribute to the follow-on mission.’’
Mr O’Dea said that while not anticipating the Government’s future decision, the recently passed UN Security Council resolution, the ongoing commitment of other EU member states, and the understanding that France planned to continue to provide the necessary logistics supports, provided a sound basis for reverting to the Government for a final substantive decision on the issue. Mr O’Dea said that subject to Government approval, it was anticipated the soldiers would serve for an initial period of 12 months.