Can I ask a question back? Does the Deputy accept there are countries in the world which are absolutely neutral militarily and there is no question of it, and which do not deploy a triple lock mechanism for their decisions around peacekeeping? I genuinely do not believe the issues should be conflated. There are a number of examples. The European Union peace operation in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia did not have a UN Security Council mandate and Ireland was unable to participate in that mission despite …

We are not doing that. Any missions we participate in will have to be in line with the values of the UN Charter. In fairness to everybody in this House, we are having this debate before we all have a chance to scrutinise the legislation, and I accept that reality. I am looking forward to getting to tease it out line by line so we can all understand what we are being asked or not asked to do.

The timeline is “very shortly”, that is, I expect I will be in a position to publish it this month. Certainly, it will be published very shortly, but in and around that time. I have a difference of view to Deputy Ó Laoghaire on this. I think people in Ireland do differentiate between military neutrality and the triple lock. I know politicians do not pay any attention to polls, definitely not, but if they did, they would know there is a significant gap between the number of people who absolutely support military neu…

A specific example of where we wanted to participate was the European Union peace operation in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. When the European Union wants to deploy peacekeepers and the Irish Government and the Dáil want to deploy peacekeepers, I do not think it is up to Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin or, frankly, anybody else to decide whether we can do that.

I thank the Deputy for raising the matter and for constructively discussing it with me at the last parliamentary questions session on defence matters. I have had engagement with my officials to try to tease through some of this since we last discussed this. As I set out on the last occasion this was raised in the House, and I feel obliged to repeat now, any discussion we have or certainly any comments that I make are necessarily restricted by the existence of ongoing litigation that is active before the courts. I w…

Maybe I was not clear but I thought I was saying something similar. There is a process ongoing in relation to the State Claims Agency trying to see if the legal cases can be resolved in a way that is to the satisfaction of both parties. In addition to that, I have also asked my officials, on the basis of the last exchange we had, to give consideration to other actions we may be able to take to try to meet the health needs of people. That is the point I am making. There is an engagement process under way now between…

I thank Deputy Ó Laoghaire. The differentiation he has made between the two processes is useful. The point he is making to me is that a number of people are not involved in legal proceedings, and they never wish to be involved in legal proceedings for whatever reason, but there are health issues that either have impacted them or are impacting them and their families have concerns about this, and there is a need to examine the health cause and effect, for want of a phrase, and to examine what other jurisdictions hav…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 157 and 165 together. I can advise the Deputies that the Defence Forces have established a new joint cyberdefence command. This new command will be able to conduct full spectrum operations to robustly defend against cyberthreats and support Defence Forces operations at home and overseas, and enhance national cyberdefence resilience and contingent capabilities. Deputy Heneghan is right that this is a real and growing issue. Following the establishment of this unit, the Defence Forces…

I am checking the tenses in my answer, and my answer tells me the Defence Forces have established a new joint cyberdefence command. The truth is in what I said. We have seen the assignment of 19 Defence Forces specialist posts to kick-start the unit and it is headed up by someone of general rank. Deputy Ó Laoghaire is also correct that we are filling the principal officer role for cyber lead, which will supplement the ten civilian cyber specialists. The closing date for that post was 10 April. This post has not yet…

The Deputy is absolutely correct. One of the issues the Government is giving consider to is that ecosystem. The Deputy will be aware that we have established for the first time a Cabinet committee on national security, chaired by the Taoiseach, in which I and the Minister for Justice participate. We are developing a national security strategy. I agree cyber affects us. Deputy Heneghan asked me to look into all Departments and every agency, but where the buck stops and where there are clear lines of responsibility i…

I thank Deputy Smith for the question. The Deputy is correct. Recruitment and retention have to be a key priority for Government because so much else of what we want to do, in terms of the national security space, the capability of the Defence Forces and the infrastructure we want to purchase and secure, relies on having men and women to operate and operationalise much of that. Figures provided for 2024 give us some cause for hope in terms of a stabilisation in numbers. It was the first year in quite a number of ye…

I thank Deputy Smith. I may have a look at that. The point the Deputy makes is a fair one. We are seeing an increase, thankfully, in the number of people joining the Defence Forces. We want to see a greater increase in diversity within the Defence Forces, and most particularly in terms of female participation. I am pleased to say that already a number of initiatives have been implemented to increase the level of female participation in the Permanent Defence Force. This includes the establishment by the Defence Forc…

I fully agree with the Deputy. When we talk about the Defence Forces, we need to talk about the total number of men and women who are available to come to the aid of the State, if and when that is required. Of course, an important component of that is the Permanent Defence Force but it is also important that there is inter-locking between that and the Reserve Defence Forces' men and women who can be called up and can assist in ways as the need arises. I have had good meetings in recent weeks with the representative…

Deputy Connolly is referring to meetings between officials from the Department of Defence and the Irish Defence and Security Association. As she is aware, the IDSA was established in 2021. Its mission is: to ensure Ireland develops appropriate, leading edge and trusted defence and security capabilities in the land, sea, air, space and cyber domains, in order to protect our society, create jobs, drive research and enhance Ireland’s economic growth National defence industry associations are the norm in most EU member…

I hope the Deputy will let me take a look at the minutes and let my office provide her with clarity as to where they are. I hope she will give me feedback on that. My note tells me that, in summary, the minutes of the meeting on 2 October largely refer to preparations for the Department's participation in an IDSA event held in November and that the minutes of the meeting on 12 December refer to enhancing communication between the Department and the association and scheduling future periodic meetings. There is also …

I am not sure whether the Deputy would use that sort of language outside the House. It is quite an extraordinary thing to say about an association established with the mission "to ensure Ireland develops appropriate, leading edge and trusted defence and security capabilities in the land, sea, air, space and cyber domains". The Deputy has said the most extraordinary things about the association. I have never met with the association in my life and do not speak for it but it is entirely appropriate that the State int…

The Deputy attaches to everything-----

-----that has to do with national security the arms industry. We are going to need to procure radar, sonar and uniforms for the men and women of the Defence Forces. The Deputy may disagree but the Government is clear that we are going to level of ambition 2 as set out in the Commission on the Defence Forces report. We then want to go to level of ambition 3. That is going to require spending money and Irish companies should be in a position to benefit. That is all it is about. We do not publish the minutes of every …

I join with Deputy Smith and Uachtarán na hÉireann in paying tribute to our Civil Defence volunteers. It is an incredible organisation. While lots of things did not go to plan during Storm Éowyn, I was briefly in Monaghan in the Deputy's constituency while on the way back from somewhere else and met some of the Civil Defence volunteers and the work they did was incredible. I know that was replicated right across the country. I was in Roscommon opening the new state-of-the-art Civil Defence headquarters only a coupl…

I thank Deputy Smith for bringing that matter to my attention. I will, in consultation with my officials, reflect on that judgment, and no doubt in my engagement with representative bodies. I look forward to visiting a number of their conferences and we will have an opportunity to further discuss that. I am happy to come back to the Deputy once I have considered the issue.