Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Quinn for coming before the committee. There are a number of issues.

It is important that we engage as early as possible in any of the plans around the Defence Forces. I have greater engagement with the Defence Forces since being made defence spokesperson in this Dáil and that has led to me raising major concerns about issues such as health and safety, and pay and conditions, in particular, capacity. On some of those, I will not exercise as fully as I have in the Chamber.

I will concentrate on a number of points. One I was going to raise has already been raised by Senator Daly is that neutrality should be reflected in the document.

The second point on that issue of neutrality is that there seems to be a clamour to get the Defence Forces involved in operations overseas which are dubious in terms of Ireland's neutrality. I have had the argument around Operation Sophia and other operations. The point I want to raise on this aspect is that in the past, the EU was prevented from going as far as it intended because the British, for their own selfish reasons, did not want the EU to develop its EU army capacity. With the British now involved in Brexit, if the State wants an ally - even though for their own and totally different reasons to ours because they wanted to enhance NATO - that bulwark is gone. Does Mr. Quinn expect that the Defence Forces or the State will come under more pressure to accede to that agenda than we have seen in recent times?

Another point Mr. Quinn was asked about was procurement. Over the years I have raised the issue of the purchasing of military goods from countries which are not ethical. In this instance, I refer to Israel and the purchase of drones from Israel. Over the past ten years, we have purchased up to €16 million worth of equipment from Israel. There needs to be some mechanism to prevent the importation of material which is being sold as war tested. The war that they refer to in terms of those drones is where they attacked civilians in Gaza and elsewhere, and here we have the Defence Forces purchasing such equipment. Surely there has to be somewhere in the world where we can purchase the drones which we are only starting to develop as an arm in the Defence Forces other than those who are clearly breaching every EU trade agreement rule. Just because the EU will not enforce that, it does not mean that we should accede to the EU cowardice on this issue.

A key element of a strategy for the Defence Forces that I am impressed with are the tables on the operations as an aid to the civil power. The support from the Irish public lends a lot to those operations which are carried out. For the Defence Forces to grow in the future, there needs to be even greater co-operation in using the military for such operations, such as inter-hospital transfers for operations and assistance in severe weather. I would expect a greater more urgent response. For instance, I note there were issues recently with deployment to Donegal. There was a delay while different people decided who was insuring whom. If that can be dealt with in advance so that there is not any delay, upon a severe weather occurrence and the chaos that entails, the Army can be in situas quick as any other of the services.

Something that has caused major concern is the capacity of the Air Corps to respond to air search and rescue missions. We saw the tragic events with the helicopter Rescue 116. In particular, with the inter-hospital transfers, a children's hospital was told late last year that there would no longer be a guarantee of transfers for organ transplants to England. What steps have been taken to address that and when will the issues, in terms of lack of personnel, be realised? The Defence Forces need personnel to be trained and there are personnel leaving the Defence Forces in greater numbers than before. When will that gap be plugged?

I might come back on one or two other issues. Finally, I refer to the loss of personnel. Among many of those who have left, the pay and conditions is a reason that is being given.

I know that another round of recruitment was announced either this week or last. It seems that there is a desire out there to join the Defence Forces but that the numbers shrink by the time candidates get through the various checks and balances, training and medical tests, and then further shrink once recruits start living the life of a soldier or sailor. We are losing many so there needs to be a greater concentration on retaining both those currently in and those in the process of joining the Defence Forces. Otherwise we will have severe capacity problems and will not even be able to fulfil our laudable UN and other overseas missions.