Defence Forces: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Pauline Tully (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel

I welcome today's motion regarding our Defence Forces, which has been proposed by Senators Wilson and Gallagher, my two constituency colleagues, and I recognise the urgent need for investment and reform to improve the quality of life of personnel and the overall strength and readiness of our Defence Forces.
A crisis has been allowed to develop within the Defence Forces due to long-standing neglect by a series of Governments. The State has completely failed to plan for the future and to ensure that Ireland has a defence force that is fit for purpose.
Our Defence Forces are effectively at rock bottom in terms of morale and are seriously struggling to manage recruitment and retention. For a military as comparatively small as ours, it is a shambolic failing that we are not able to ensure that our basic staffing and equipment needs are being met.
We currently have fewer than 8,000 personnel in the Permanent Defence Force, well below the established strength, never mind the 11,000 personnel recommended under stage 2 of the Commission on Future of Defence Forces. We have had the embarrassing situation where ships have been put to sea with no functioning main gun because of a lack of specialist staff to operate it or have been unable to be put to sea at all due to lack of crew.
I welcome the intention of this motion, but we now need to see real and meaningful follow-through from the Government parties. The men and women of the Defence Forces deserve better than what they have seen from the previous Government.
It is worth remembering that when Micheál Martin was Minister for Defence, he repeatedly returned defence money to the Exchequer unspent – €30 million in 2024, €70 million in 2023 and €70 million in 2022. What this results in is the systematic decline of our Defence Forces.
In the past five years, we have had more people leave than join, resulting in a clear drain of our experience and expertise. We have also seen how more than 900 people recruited to the Defence Forces since 2020 left within five years.
Unfortunately, we are now in a situation where the lack of personnel and capabilities in our Defence Forces is a threat to our national security. We have seen it most recently during the visit of President Zelenskyy to Ireland, in which we were left vulnerable to drone attacks. There are also the very real vulnerabilities to our offshore cables and our inability to surveil our own airspace.
The reality is that our Defence Forces are in a very precarious position as a result of Government underfunding and despite a series of promises and commitments, we have seen very little practical change. It is long past time for the Government to cease the neglect of the Defence Forces and ensure that Ireland has a defence force that is fit for purpose.
Sinn Féin believes Ireland must be both strong on defence and equally strong on protecting our neutrality. That means ensuring that we have Defence Forces that are able to ensure the security of the State and that enable us to participate and contribute in UN peacekeeping missions to the best of their abilities.
The focus of this Government should be on rebuilding the Defence Forces, ensuring that it has the personnel and equipment that it needs, while protecting our core value of neutrality. Our neutrality has been our greatest protection since the founding of the State and it is needed more now than ever. We are in a very difficult and volatile period of history, with the possibility of war becoming more real every day. It is vitally important that the Government is clear-sighted in ensuring the readiness of our Defence Forces and does not make rash moves such as scrapping the triple-lock neutrality protection.
The amendment I intend to propose has been put forward by Sinn Féin Senators. The amendment calls for:
the creation of a health outcomes assessment for Air Corps Medical Personnel similar to the Study of Health Outcomes in Aircraft Maintenance Personnel process in Australia, in order to identify potential adverse health outcomes for said personnel, and to ensure that Air Corps Maintenance personnel are supported with healthcare costs for such potential outcomes using an appropriate mechanism;...
To explain, there have been multiple cases of long-term medical conditions that former Air Corps personnel believe to be connected to exposure to hazardous chemicals. The urgent priority now must be ensuring that medical needs of the former personnel are addressed but there is also a need for answers.
What they deserve, most urgently of all, is to have their medical care addressed. We call for an immediate medical assessment of former Air Corps personnel to see whether they are affected by exposure to chemicals. The Government also needs to engage with the personnel in question to ensure that a mechanism is found to ensure the personnel and their families are supported with medical care as they deserve answers.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-01-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-21