That is true. This group is, of course, looking at historical cases and at how we should deal with them in a comprehensive manner to establish the truth and so on. It is also looking at current practices within the Defence Forces, as well as the culture and procedures within the body. As an employer, I have an obligation towards people who are currently serving in the Defence Forces to ensure I act on recommendations to modernise the organisation, to change a culture that has been there and that needs to change and…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 3 and 4 together. I am informed that, contrary to what has been suggested, there is no exodus of doctors from the Defence Forces. Medical officers are recruited into the Defence Forces via two streams, direct entry and the military medicine training scheme, which is a five-year training programme leading to dual specialisation in both military medicine and general practice. The establishment figure for medical officers is 28, which includes the position of psychiatrist and for which…

All I can do is-----

I got the statistics I cited directly from the Defence Forces. Let us be clear on that. As it happens, I have my monthly recruitment and retention meeting with the general staff today. Every month now, I have a scheduled meeting on recruitment and retention with key leaders in the Defence Forces. We will keep having those meetings until we turn the tide on recruitment and retention challenges. There is pressure with regard to medical staff, just as there is with many other specialties in the Defence Forces and acro…

I expect the figures I outlined to be true, regardless of what is being said on social media platforms or in other media outlets. If they are not correct, there is obviously an issue. I expect the numbers I outlined are factually correct, however. We need to get an awful lot better at recruitment and retention in the Defence Forces in terms of how we manage people. That is why we have approval now to move ahead with the recruitment of a head of transformation and head of HR in the Defence Forces. Both of those posi…

I will give the Deputy my answer and I am not sure if it is what the Deputy is looking for but I will come back with supplementary responses and perhaps clarify if she has further questions. The military air doctrine dates back to before the commission but I will put a number of things on the record and I will try to ensure that I answer the Deputy's questions then, if I can. The Defence Forces Capstone Doctrine was published in 31 March 2016. This Capstone Doctrine is published in support of the objectives of the …

Yes, I hope so and the sooner the better. The delivery of the air doctrine is not in itself a recommendation of the Commission on the Defence Forces or the high-level implementation plan. However, doctrinal development is part of the training and education command in the proposed future high-level command and control structure proposed by the Commission on the Defence Forces. It is my intention to revert to the Government on the proposed changes to the Defence Forces structures and, in particular, the reform of hig…

I do not believe that there is a lack of clarity here but this is something which must continue to evolve. For me, growing and expanding the Air Corps is a very big part of what we will be doing over the next decade in the Defence Forces. For the obvious reasons that the Deputy has outlined, we have ten times as much sea surface as we have land surface. If one takes our sovereign territory at sea as well as land, I believe we are the fourth or fifth largest country physically in the European Union. In order to have…

In fairness, I am surprised that the Deputy is perplexed that these issues have not been resolved because this is a commitment in the programme for Government to address this issue but this is through the lifetime of the Government. I hope to make a great deal of progress in the next 12 months but this is not an easy thing to address and there is quite a cost to it. I believe it will cost us approximately €10 million a year. This is, incidentally, money well spent in addressing this issue and fully responding to th…

If I could finish, I just have a couple of lines. A working group on medical care was established in 2021 to bring forward proposals and identify an approach to implementing the programme for Government commitment, including analysing the range and cost of treatments currently provided to officers and how best to provide this access to enlisted personnel.

I hear you.

If there is misinformation, I am not responsible for it in this instance. We have a working group looking at this. The group reported earlier this year and the matter is being progressed as one of the early actions in the high-level action plan of the report of the Commission on the Defence Forces. It is in black and white and was part of the negotiation in terms of Estimates for next year because we want to progress it next year. Let me be clear: we made a commitment in the programme for Government to do this. The…

It is a commitment as an early action, which means we are looking to get on with it next year. This is not a simple thing to do. It costs money. We have to account for that, put it in Estimates and work with the representative bodies in the Defence Forces to make sure we are progressing it in a way that works. That work is under way. We have a working group that is focusing on this. It has already produced its first report. As a result of that report, we have the delivery of this commitment as part of the early act…

I thank the Deputy. The report of the Commission on the Defence Forces made it clear that the level of ambition, LOA, for the Defence Forces needed to be elevated beyond that at which it is operating. In that context, the Government approved a move over a six-year period to a level of Defence Forces capability equivalent to LOA 2 in the report. This will require an additional 2,000 personnel beyond the current establishment figure of 9,500. Because we are well below 9,500 now, the figure is slightly above 3,000, ra…

I am more than aware of that but before starting to build numbers, you have to stop the losses. We are at that moment of changing momentum, I hope. We have an enormous financial commitment from Government and a policy framework to do that. We also have a plan of action linked to an independent report put together over a 12-month period. Since I have come into politics, there has never been a stronger focus and priority on trying to build, grow, expand and invest in increasing the size of the Defence Forces. We are …

I live a few miles from the naval base and know it well. I go walking and running there fairly regularly. Nobody is more focused than I am on getting our Naval Service back up to the strength it should be at. We are about 275 people below where we should be, which is impacting on our ability to crew vessels. We have just decommissioned three ships, not because we could not crew them despite some of the commentary but because they are old and needed to be moved on. At the start of next year, we will bring in two shi…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 8, 9, 18 and 33 together. We have already touched on some of these numbers, but I will go through them again. I note that tables of details of inductions, discharges and vacancies in the Defence Forces were requested and I will arrange for the Deputies who requested them to get them in writing so that there is no misunderstanding on where we stand on numbers. Recruitment and retention difficulties in the Defence Forces have been previously acknowledged. In addition, the report of th…

We do set targets at the monthly meetings, not only for the remainder of this year, but also for next year. We are also planning investment programmes for the year ahead. For example, we are finalising a concept brief for the transformation of Gormanstown as a specialist training centre dealing with significantly greater numbers than we can currently deal with. We are planning for the induction and recruitment of up to 1,000 people per year through such a facility, working with the Curragh and other facilities. Muc…

In truth, to provide the number of houses required to make a significant impact on recruitment and retention would need a huge capital investment programme. That is not the direction of policy we have taken in recent years. I am not ruling anything out, but providing housing for personnel, to keep them in the Defence Forces, will be a mainstay of our recruitment and retention strategy in the coming years. It may have some niche roles to play within certain elements of the Defence Forces, but it is unlikely to be a …

I will finish on this point. Quite a number of Members asked a question in this grouping. It is not true to say the Defence Forces are unique in terms of vacancies across the public sector. There are recruitment and retention issues across the public sector, be it in healthcare, An Garda Síochána, or the Defence Forces, as well as in many other specialist areas.