Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have 30 seconds to deal with a great deal. I aware of dereliction in the Curragh Barracks; we are working on it. It is part of the capital programme. We have €270 million of expenditure over the next few years already mapped out. From a Haulbowline perspective, recruits there today will see new ships, and €74 million of capital investment on the island over the next ten years. The east tip will also be remediated. We have opened probably the highest quality accommodation building in terms of all of the Defence Forces infrastructure over the last number of months. A new jetty has also been invested in and there will be a new gym. We will see Haulbowline Island transformed. We are also going to see new bases on the east and west coasts and we will implement double crewing, when we have the numbers to do it. This means people will not have to go to sea for as long. The whole idea here is to respond to family pressures and quality of life issues for men and women in the Naval Service, which will shortly become the Irish Navy by the way. There is much to look forward to if you are in the Naval Service at the moment. There are private sector companies effectively preying on talented, motivated, well-qualified people and offering them short-term incentives to leave and we need to respond to that.

I look forward to coming back and talking about the implementation of the commission's recommendations. We are at the start of a very transformative period but we have to start talking up the Defence Forces as well. There is so much negativity around the Defence Forces in terms of the politics of the issues that it seeps into the psyche of many people who are thinking about

joining. We have to turn that momentum around.