A demand by Independent TD Clare Daly for a withdrawal of Irish troops from Afghanistan was rejected by Minister for Defence Simon Coveney.

The Minister said following through on Ms Daly’s logic would mean the international community pulling out of Afghanistan.

“In my view, if that were to happen, the country would implode and would be taken over once again by tribal leaders, some of them fundamentalist in their thinking, and that is not what the international community would like to see happen,” he added.

“Therefore we are doing what we can, in a new government, to try to support the maintenance of stability and the building of some kind of normalisation in a country that has not seen that for very many years.”

Ms Daly argued that as Ireland was a neutral country, its Defence Forces personnel should never have had any involvement with the occupational forces in Afghanistan.

Resolute support mission

Given the end of the mission before Christmas, it was regrettable Mr Coveney did not use that opportunity to withdraw the seven Defence Forces personnel but instead chose to have them remain as part of the resolute support mission, she said.

Mr Coveney said the deployment of Defence Forces personnel to the UN-mandated, Nato-led ISAF mission in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2014 had no implications for Ireland’s traditional policy of military neutrality.

“The service of Defence Forces personnel with ISAF represented a further example of Ireland’s commitment to participation in UN-mandated peace operations, a long-standing and key foreign policy principle for Ireland,” he said.