Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief because, as we are aware, there is a critical debate under way in the Dáil at present. I thank you, Chairman, for facilitating today’s meeting. It is very important that the committee agreed to invite the representative body before it and it is to be lauded on its actions.

Given the day that is in it, the time available will not perhaps allow for the type of in-depth discussion we need. Could we reserve time in the coming weeks, no later than that, for the committee to engage constructively on the points that have been brought to our attention? When the Reserve Defence Force representatives came before us in April of last year it is probably true to say that some people felt they were being perhaps a little alarmist. A year and a half later there is a sense of fatalism in what they have said to us. I had many questions to put, but what is really needed in the situation is an affirmation on the part of the committee of a recognition of the importance of the Reserve Defence Force. The reserves are a critical part of the defence structure on this island. We must look at the issue in the context of the fact that we have pared back our Permanent Defence Force to 9,500 members. We have the lowest expenditure among neutral countries as a percentage of GDP in the European Union. The Reserve Defence Force is operating way below its establishment strength.

We have been asked to conduct a review. I have one question in that respect. Is the committee being asked to conduct the review or is it considered that we should secure outside expertise to carry it out on our behalf? I think I speak for members on all sides when I say that there is a recognition among the body politic of the importance of reservists. If it is the sense of the witnesses that they have been set up by faceless bureaucrats within a system, the purpose of which is to make them fail, then that is not our ambition for them, which is to see them realise their full potential. The committee should and will do everything in its power to work with reservists to ensure the sort of priority they deserve is given to them in the future.