AN IRISH NAVAL is to be deployed to the Mediterranean as part of Operation Irini, which primarily aims to enforce an arms embargo on Libya.

TDs last night voted to send LÉ William Butler Yeats – a Samuel Beckett-class patrol vessel – to assist the European Union defence operation

Prior to a vote on the mission, opposition TDs raised ethical concerns and asked whether the Irish Naval Service would be working with the Libyan Coast Guard.

The Libyan Coast Guard routinely intercepts boats of migrants and returns them to detention camps in Libya, where human rights violations are allegedly commonplace. 

Tánaiste and Minister for Defence Micheál Martin has since said that it is “not intended” that Naval Service personnel will engage with the organisation when deployed to Operation Irini.

Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon proposed an amendment to the government’s motion to deploy the vessel, emphasising the Irish navy’s responsibility to assist anyone in trouble at sea.

TDs last night voted in favour of the motion.

Speaking in the Dáil this week, the Tánaiste said that stopping the flow of weapons into Libya will help “create the conditions for a permanent ceasefire”.

He added that Operation Irini “has no mandate” for search and rescue, but that the place the mission operates “does not attract” migrants and it is unlikely that it would need to assist them.

“However”, he said, “should an occasion arise where any Operation Irini ship is involved in SOLAS/SAR, the mission direction is that the migrants would be disembarked to a European Coastguard ship as soon as possible so that the Operation Irini ship can return to its mandated operations with the minimum of delay”, he said.