Ireland Defence Forces Ukraine training mission, Digi Mart USA News (Ireland): Ireland has been unable to send soldiers to train Ukrainian troops since last year due to a lack of Defence Forces volunteers, according to a report published by the Irish Times. The shortfall comes even though the Government agreed to extend Defence Forces participation in the EU’s military training mission for Ukraine for another two years.
Between 2023 and 2025, Defence Forces personnel trained Ukrainian troops in demining, battlefield medical care and combat engineering. They also taught basic weapons handling and marksmanship, with 24 individual training missions taking place, each lasting six to seven weeks.
Department figures cited in the report show about 1,200 Ukrainian soldiers were trained by Irish instructors.
No training has taken place this year, the report says, which it attributes to the Department of Defence’s refusal to pay allowances to troops taking part. Until this year, soldiers received subsistence allowances of €150 a day to cover food and living expenses.
When the German military said it would feed the Irish soldiers, the department stopped paying that allowance, a move that caused considerable anger among Irish personnel, who complained the German rations were poor quality and that they still had to buy their own food.
A planned Irish training mission of about 12 instructors in Germany, due to start in early 2026, was delayed after no Irish soldiers volunteered because of the allowance issue. It was pushed back to May before being cancelled entirely, according to military sources cited by the report.
The Defence Forces has reportedly prepared a business case proposing payment of the basic overseas peacekeeping allowance of €96 a day, but the report says this has not been acted on.
Lieut Col Conor King, chairman of the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers, criticised the department’s approach, saying it was causing damage internally and to Ireland’s international reputation. Cabinet has approved the mission’s extension, which the Council of the European Union said would continue up to 2028, and Minister for Defence Helen McEntee received approval for no more than 30 Defence Forces personnel to take part, including three officers permanently based in mission headquarters.
The Department of Defence has been contacted for comment.
