There are issues, but if people are leaving the Defence Forces because they are targeted by a private sector that wants to offer them more money, then this is a choice people will make. We cannot chase the private sector in pay levels all the time. There are many highly qualified and talented people in the Defence Forces who get job offers to leave the Defence Forces because of the skill sets they have. We must respect those decisions. People also leave other parts of the public sector in the same way. We face turn…

I accept there is a recruitment and retention issue in the Defence Forces. We are doing a lot to address this. We have had some successes, especially in the Air Corps in bringing pilots back in. That was not just a Covid dividend; it was also because of a scheme we put in place to do that. We are setting about addressing recruitment and retention issues in the Naval Service and in the Army too. We are inviting back and bringing back people who have left the Defence Forces who want to return, at officer level and no…

This is a very important question. My colleague the Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Ryan, retains overall responsibility for cybersecurity at a national level but, of course, the response to cyber threats is a whole-of-government challenge with important inputs in the security domain from An Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces. As we have seen with the cyberattack on the HSE, cybersecurity is an issue about which we all need to be very concerned. For national security reasons, it woul…

While the primary role of the Defence Forces with regard to cybersecurity relates to the defence and security of their own networks and systems, the Department of Defence and the Defence Forces are committed to participating under the leadership of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications on the delivery of measures to improve the cybersecurity of the State. This is being done in line with the programme for Government commitment to implement the national cybersecurity strategy, recognising the …

There are certain things to which I cannot commit as Minister for Defence. What I can commit to is the role of the Defence Forces in the context of making a contribution to a whole-of-government response to cyber threats as they emerge. We are planning for this and we are investing accordingly. We have asked the Commission on the Future of the Defence Forces to look at the role the Defence Forces need to play to secure their own systems against cyberattacks as well as making a contribution to the national effort. T…

Irish Defence Forces personnel are currently deployed in two separate missions in Mali. The Government has approved the continued provision of up to 20 members of the Permanent Defence Force for service with the EU mission to train the Malian armed forces in Mali, known as EUTM Mali, or the EU training mission, up to 22 March 2022. In addition, the Government has approved the continued provision of up to 14 Defence Forces personnel, drawn primarily from the Army Ranger Wing, to participate in MINUSMA, the United Na…

I want to put on the record of the House that defence force personnel from EU countries in Mali are there to try to bring stability to save lives. The French are central to these efforts. I want to read into the record from a statement on what happened in recent days and the risks they all face so that we can show a bit of respect to peacekeepers in a part of the world that would be falling apart, in my view, if it were not for the intervention of EU troops, including French troops. At 6.25 a.m. on Friday morning l…

They do not operate outside of Mali. I want to put that on the record.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 13 and 14 together. As the Deputy will be aware, the Naval Service is the State's principal seagoing agency and is tasked with a variety of defence and other roles. The main day-to-day role of the Naval Service is to provide a fisheries protection service in accordance with the State's obligations as a member of the EU. The service is tasked with patrolling all Irish waters from the shoreline to the outer limits of the exclusive economic zone. These patrols are carried out on a regu…

We have two ships in reserve and one ship in a midlife refit, which takes a period of time. There are essentially six ships operational in our fleet at the moment. The two ships in reserve can be deployed if there is an emergency. Due to the fact that there are challenges in respect of the numbers in the Naval Service, we are focused on operating six ships safely with full crews. I am not willing to compromise on safety standards by under-crewing ships to try to get more ships out. The two ships in reserve are ship…

The Deputy will be pleased to hear that I was in Dún Laoghaire using the facilities of the harbour a few days ago when the Naval Service picked me up in a rigid inflatable boat, RIB, and took me to the LÉ George Bernard Shaw where we spent nearly 24 hours on patrol down the east coast and along the south coast. It was a good opportunity to spend some time with our naval personnel and to speak to them about the challenges and issues for them in the Defence Forces in terms of their career choices and so on. It was ti…

To be fair to him, the Deputy always asks searching questions. For obvious reasons, this is a sector that he understands well. The civil-military joint standing committee on medical service delivery is tasked with advancing the development of a sustainable, integrated medical service to meet the needs of the Defence Forces. As part of its work, it has committed to reviewing each key medical capability separately. The objective of each review is to evaluate and make recommendations regarding the most appropriate mea…

I will follow the progress of this review closely. The Army Nursing Service is essential to our Defence Forces and needs to be available to all serving personnel. We have made a commitment in the programme for Government that the medical facilities available to officers in the Defence Forces should be available to all serving personnel. That commitment will take some time to implement, but I am determined to do that. I am happy to make the commitment that the review will conclude before the end of the year. We will…

I assure the House that, in terms of our overseas deployments, we always ensure that there are appropriate medical supports, medical facilities and nursing staff available to our serving personnel. This normally means that we embed our serving personnel with others. In Mali, we are embedded with the Germans. When I visited the EU training mission, it had a German medical facility that was responsible for looking after the medical requirements of the Irish serving personnel. That said, medical expertise and medical …

I propose to take Questions Nos. 16 and 51 together. In short, I do not have the report yet, but I have been speaking to the Chief of Staff about my wanting to have it soon. I suspect that I will have it soon and I look forward to being able to discuss it in some detail then. The issue of awarding Military Medals for Gallantry and Distinguished Service Medals to personnel who served in Jadotville in September 1961 has been considered on a number of occasions over the years and a number of actions have been taken to…

"No" is the straight answer. However, I have asked that I receive the report shortly. I hope I will receive it within days. One of the things I am determined to do is to make sure we have the opportunity to have statements on this report and its recommendations before we break up for the summer, which means we need to get on with it. I have responded positively to requests for more time - which I think was the right thing to do - because my understanding is this is quite a significant report in terms of the number …

We should not presuppose the outcome of the report. This report was not completed weeks ago and is sitting on someone's desk. I spoke to the Chief of Staff about this a few days ago. The report is in the final stages of being completed. Of course, it then needs to be printed up and so on and the Chief of Staff needs some time to be able to consider it. However, I am looking to have the report and the response of the Chief of Staff to that report as soon as possible, as I said, within days. I hope that can be facili…

I agree with that. We did have a full debate on this issue in the Seanad and I did give a commitment once the report was concluded, we would have statements in the Seanad on that and I would like to follow through on that commitment. Let us see if we can schedule a debate here also. In many ways, Jadotville is a reminder of the service overseas of Irish Defence Forces personnel over many years. Believe me, the more you learn about and talk to people who are involved in peacekeeping, the more you realise there are m…

I certainly hope the right thing will be done, as the Deputy said. I have put some faith in the Chief of Staff to undertake an appropriate review of these issues and, hopefully, we will find out the result of that process in the next few days and certainly in the next couple of weeks. The Deputy is correct that September is a significant anniversary. It coincides with our presidency of the UN Security Council in New York. During the month of our presidency, one of the events we will focus on is peacekeeping and pea…

It sounds as if I have an ally in trying to increase defence spending. I will remember that at budget time. Each year, the defence budget is determined within the overarching budgetary framework and approved by Dáil Eireann, having regard to the level of resources available and defence policy requirements. Capital funding allocations are also framed by the multi-annual national development plan. Expenditure on the Defence Forces is managed through the defence Vote 36, with all operational outputs delivered from a s…