THE Minister for Defence and the Marine, Mr Barrett, will visit the Irish troops in Lebanon this weekend. He told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs he wanted "to see for myself at first hand the situation on the ground in the Irish area of operations".

He would also "express the appreciation of the Government of the manner in which the troops continue to carry out their peace keeping duties".

The Minister said the Government was allocating a special grant of £75,000 to the Irish battalion to enable the soldiers to expand their emergency assistance to the Lebanese population.

This money was in addition to the regular humanitarian grant of £40,000 per annum.

Although it was not possible to give "absolute guarantees" of the safety of the Irish contingent he could assure the committee that none of the troops would be exposed to unnecessary risks and all possible precautions were being taken to ensure their safety.

Senator David Norris (Ind) sharply criticised she role of Iran which, he said, had directly established the Hizbullah militia.

Mr Michael Ferris (Labour) said the Qana attack of April 18th had "changed the balance in the minds of this committee".