The Government is ready to charter planes to get Irish citizens out of Lebanon, the Tánaiste has said.

Around 150 Irish citizens remain in the country as the Israeli bombardment continues and the Department of Foreign Affairs has advised them to leave the country.

The UK has already begun chartering planes to help its citizens escape the country – with 150 leaving yesterday and more planes on the way.

Evacuation

Tánaiste Micheál Martin told Newstalk that the Government is working with the UK and other EU countries in a bid to evacuate the Irish people that remain there.

“We have a memorandum of understanding with the UK but they have thousands of civilians in Lebanon as indeed do other European states,” he said.

“We will work in coordination with European Union member states in respect of helping civilians to leave.

“At the moment there are very few commercial flights but the airport is still operating and if we need to charter, we will.”

Flights

Minister Martin said the Government continues to urge anyone remaining in the country to leave while commercial flights are still available.

“We have advised all of our Irish citizens for a number of months now to leave Lebanon,” he said.

“We were always concerned that the situation would turn for the worst.

“We are scenario planning and we will be taking a number of measures to help Irish citizens - all those who want to leave - to leave and we will have further details of that later.”

Tánaiste Micheál Martin in the Newstalk studio. Image: Newstalk

On The Pat Kenny Show yesterday, Minister Martin said Ireland’s soldiers in Lebanon are ‘safe and accounted for’ – noting that they were ‘bunkered down’ in Lebanon on Tuesday night.

350 soldiers are currently on a UN peacekeeping mission to the country.

He said plans are in place to evacuate them if necessary but for now, the clear preference for all countries involved in the mission is for the troops to “stay put and commit to peacekeeping in Lebanon”.

You can listen back to that interview here: