Taoiseach Bertie Ahern today met members of the Defence Forces in training for deployment to Chad.
Mr Ahern was accompanied by the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces Lt Gen Dermot Earley in an inspection of troops and equipment at McKee Barracks in Dublin.
Some 400 Irish troops are to join a 3,700-strong EU peacekeeping mission to the central African state later this month.
The European Union sanctioned the deployment in December in an effort to protect refugee camps housing more than 400,000 Chadian and Sudanese refugees fleeing the violence in Darfur.
Troops from France, Sweden, Poland and Romania will make up the rest of the mission, which has been broadly welcomed by aid agencies as a necessary step to stabilising the situation on the Chad/Darfur border.