I have been in office for a little bit less than that but I am absolutely determined that we make progress across all areas of pay when it comes to the Defence Forces, at every level. The Deputy will appreciate that much of that work will have to happen through the normal process of the public sector pay agreements. At the same time, I have been very clear that where we can make progress in other ways, I would like to do so. I want to highlight the significant progress that the Government has made on pay and condit…

The Deputy will be aware that anything we do in this regard has to be very much in line with the parameters of the public pay policy. I am not the Minister for public expenditure and reform. What I can do is look to see whether there are other mechanisms by which we can increase the overall figure. I have met RACO and I have spoken to its representatives about this. I know this is a real priority for it. While I gave a very clear commitment when I met them earlier this year that this is something I would pursue, I …

I thank the Deputy. I repeat what I have said on the floor of the House here but also when engaging with RACO and other members. I am committed to working with them in trying to advance not just pay but overall working conditions for members of the Defence Forces. If we want to achieve higher numbers, if we want to achieve a greater workforce design and if we want to expand our overall priorities, objectives and our overall capabilities then we need to make sure that we are looking at every aspect here. I have to w…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. We are all very conscious of the very complex and changing environment in Lebanon on a daily basis, and even today when there were supposed to be ceasefires we see continuous fire and conflict taking place. I assure the House that there has been ongoing and substantive engagement with the United Nations and with our international partners regarding the position and future role of Irish personnel serving with UNIFIL, and particularly in light of the continuing and deeply c…

I will refer to an earlier question around the orderly drawdowns. We have had in the last few weeks seen the last battalion travel to Lebanon where there was a crossover with the troops who had been there previously. That will be the final round of troops, essentially, that would carry out this mission. What we will see later this year is a much smaller number who will travel over to help to wind down the mission and make sure the equipment and technology we have over there can be brought out, as well as to make su…

I join with the Deputy in thanking all of our troops who, for the past number of decades, have contributed significantly to peace in Lebanon and to monitoring the situation and who continue to do so even in the most hostile of environments. I met many of those members who travelled out in the past few weeks with their families. For many of them this is their second, third, fourth or fifth mission. This is something we know our troops are absolutely committed to, for which they are held in high regard, not just by t…

I thank the Deputy for this particular question. Developing the military radar capability of the Defence Forces is one of my key priorities and a key element of the move to level of ambition 2. The Commission on the Defence Forces advised that the absence of a capability to maintain a complete recognised air picture is something we need to address. We need to make sure we have the capacity to have a recognised air picture and it needs to be complete. This means we would be able to protect our national sovereignty a…

I fully agree with the Deputy. The reason there is a need for this to be introduced as soon as possible is because we are seeing a changed landscape and changed types of threats. We are seeing more hybrid activity and use of drones not just here, but in other countries as well that is disrupting airspace, causing significant challenges, costing a lot of money and creating a real sense of unease. It is really important that we have the right capability to be able to detect what is in our skies, what is happening ove…

To answer the Deputy’s question, the capability will be in place by 1 July for our Presidency. Training is under way. I was with my French colleague just last week in Paris and we discussed not just the radar programme but other ways in which we are working more closely together. The French have been supporting and working closely with our Defence Forces personnel around the training on how to use this. This is just to assist. I stress that again because there is often a perception that it is the Defence Forces whi…

As Minister, I am committed to the ongoing work of ensuring that our Defence Forces are modern, agile and fit for the world we live in to defend the State and meet the challenges of today and the future. That obviously means investing not just in the Defence Forces as personnel but also in our infrastructure. That is a key commitment in our overall capital plan. The Commission on the Defence Forces recommended in its 2022 report significant changes to the Defence Forces and defence provision in Ireland. It covers h…

I will refer to what the Deputy has referred to as well, but there is also the significant increase in funding that has been agreed by this Government, specifically investment not just in the men and women, but also in our overall structures within our Defence Forces system. I have visited quite a number of barracks in the past few months. I have been in Aiken Barracks in Dundalk, the accommodation in Renmore, Galway, the Gormanstown campus and Haulbowline. All of these are areas where we are seeing significant inv…

I probably was not aware of it myself until coming into the Department, but there is a significant body of work happening, following on from the Commission on the Defence Forces, to look at what we need. The commission has set out how we reach level of ambition 2, how we increase our numbers and what type of capabilities we need. There is also other work being done to look at our overall footprint, where we need to invest in different barracks, how we need to expand and grow, and which areas we need to look at from…

I acknowledge the important role played by members of the Reserve Defence Force, RDF, and thank them for their continued commitment and the way in which they consistently support the members of the Permanent Defence Force. The strategic objective for the Reserve Defence Force is the development of a reserve force that can seamlessly train, operate and deploy on a voluntary basis with our Permanent Defence Force, both on the island and overseas. As the Deputy mentioned, this is strongly reflected in the report of th…

I concur with the Deputy's initial point, which is that we have 24-7 monitoring of Irish waters, of our exclusive economic zone. This is happening in the air and at sea, and it is supported on land mainly by our base in Haulbowline. We have increased and expanded our capacity, capabilities and ability to monitor what is happening above our seas, but also to monitor what is happening below our seas, in particular to protect our critical infrastructure, which comes across the Atlantic and goes through Ireland on to m…

The Deputy is right: the Naval Service Reserve is organised across five different units. There are units in Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Waterford. The fifth unit is a technical support base, so it is not based in any specific location rather than the Naval Service HQ. If there were to be an expansion, we would be looking at other areas that currently are not covered. Again, the Deputy is right; the maritime security strategy was clear in outlining that we need to look to see if there is a need for another base from …

I thank the Deputy. I would say at the outset that times have changed. We should be allowed to debate the fact that we are in a different world now from when this was first introduced. At the time when the triple lock was introduced, those who opposed its introduction said that it was going to drag us into wars; that the US, Russia, China and the permanent member states of the UN were going to drag us, through the triple lock, into all these wars in which we were going to partake; and that we would lose our neutral…

-----now preventing us from continuing on these peacekeeping missions. Therefore, I do not understand or fathom how we could find ourselves in a position now where we would sit, do nothing and allow larger countries that have nothing to do with, and nor should they have anything to do with, how we deploy our troops to prevent us from continuing in missions and see us now having to come off missions that other member states are on. There are no other countries within the EU that have this position. There are no othe…

No.

In terms of what will be in the proposed legislation, we will have an opportunity to discuss and debate in this House on Committee Stage, as we should do, anything of significance. This is significant because it will allow us to continue a practice we have had in place for many decades. The absolute priority here is to make sure that any future deployments for operations are put forward and that they adhere not just to the principles of the UN Charter but also to international law. We are very clear. We are not goi…

The Deputy is being completely disingenuous by consistently and continuously linking the triple lock with our neutrality. We were a neutral country before the triple lock was introduced. Does he accept that? We were a neutral country before the triple lock was introduced. It was introduced at a time to make sure that we could send our troops across waters to peacekeeping missions. In many instances, that is not possible so, again, does the Deputy accept that in the past two weeks alone, we have had troops who have …