Coveney says Irish troops will not be sent into a civil war

Minister for Defence Simon Coveney is hopeful agreement can be reached soon on a UN statement confirming a structural change to the Golan Heights mission in which Irish troops are involved.

He told the Dáil that the UN Security Council met on Wednesday and he was “pleased in principle with the draft statement that has been doing the rounds”.

The Minister said Irish Defence Forces personnel would not be sent into a civil war and insisted the Government had not decided “definitely” to go ahead with sending more troops. “We are preparing as if we are going to. The troops will continue their training,” he said. “But I need to ensure that we are sending them into a mission that is being managed appropriately in terms of the risk level they will be exposed to.”

Asked by Sinn Féin defence spokesman Pádraig Mac Lochlainn about media reports that Irish troops would have been in a very dangerous situation but for the intervention of the Israeli Defence Forces, Mr Coveney said it was “simply not true” that Israeli forces rescued Irish troops.

He said Irish personnel were asked to rescue Filipino troops who were under pressure and surrounded by rebel forces, and they did so in a very professional way. “They took some fire and returned some fire and they successfully helped their colleagues to get out of a very difficult situation,” he said, adding that “there was no incident in which Israeli troops had to rescue Irish troops”.

The Minister said the role of the Defence Forces in the Golan Heights was to observe an armistice between Israel and Syria that happened in 1974 and "it will continue to be about observing the adherence to that armistice".

Fianna Fáil defence spokesman Seán Ó Fearghaíl had asked the Minister to guarantee the deployment of personnel on the Golan Heights would not extend beyond a fortnight.

Of the delay in the troop rotation, Mr Coveney said there was significant structural change to the mission and it was deemed appropriate that the troops on the ground put that change in place because they were more familiar with the area.

“We are not moving into the territory of peace enforcement here and under no circumstances am I going to send Irish troops on a peacekeeping mission to involve themselves in a civil war and trying to enforce peace on that civil war,” he said.

The observation role had been complicated by the civil war in Syria, where he said most of the Golan Heights region that was a demilitarised, supervised zone was now in the control of rebel forces.