Dr. Mark Mellett:

I take Deputy Ó Snodaigh's point about the Phoenix Park. He provided clarification in that regard. The reality is that I have huge pride in the Defence Forces and the manner in which they delivered during the papal visit. It was critically important that we turned out and delivered the level of security appropriate to the event. It was not just security; it also involved providing support for civil society on the days surrounding the visit of the Pope.

On Deputy Ó Snodaigh's earlier point about those who were serving, there are a number of initiatives. I have said I want to see contracts addressed as soon as possible in order that we can give certainty. There is also the developing piece on re-enlistment on which we are in discussions with the Department. I accept that some people leave the Defence Forces, go elsewhere and perhaps develop to a certain extent. I want to be able to give them an opportunity to come back into the Defence Forces if they want to do so. We are already doing this in the case of officers. We have the opportunity to recommission officers who have left and want to come back in. Likewise, in terms of re-engagement, a matter which is related to individuals who are serving, we want to give staff the opportunity to make it more flexible for them to re-engage.

Deputy Ó Snodaigh also referred to people being able to work later in life. That is all on the table in terms of our advice to the Department in elaborating on terms and conditions of service within the Defence Forces. In fact, on one of the freedoms, I was trying to move on the issue of colour blindness. I have a working group looking at the issue of colour blindness and transgender issues in the context of how we can have institutions that are appropriate. Going back to Deputy Clare Daly's point about colour blindness, one of the impediments is that 9% of the male community are colour blind, while only 1% of the female community are. That helps me in one area in bringing more men into the organisation, but it does not help me on the female side.

Specifically on the operations side, the Naval Service has the highest churn or turnover of personnel of the three services. That is a concern.

There has been an issue with a number of ships that did not sail. I have addressed it with the flag officer, the assistant Chief of Staff and the deputy Chief of Staff, support, in expediting an intake of incruits who will come in in the next week or so and bring a resource into the Naval Service. I have also engaged with the Minister on aspects of the Naval Service at which we need to look in the longer term to ensure it can maintain a level and tempo of operations suited to the Defence Forces.

On Operations Pontus and Sophia, a number of years ago the numbers crossing by the central Mediterranean route were in the hundreds of thousands. At that stage the Government made a policy decision that we should work in a bilateral way with the Italian Government. For a period we sent a number of ships to the Mediterranean, during which time they were extraordinarily busy, as was widely reported. A total of 18,000 men, women and children were rescued during the course of these deployments. During that time we saw hundreds of people drown and recovered scores of bodies. It was a very challenging period. The Government decided to shift to Operation Sophia, from which, as was mentioned by Deputy Ó Snodaigh, the ship returned recently. The focus of the operation was on disrupting those who were exploiting the vulnerable and the traffickers who were extracting money from migrants and pushing them out into the Mediterranean where they were left in a hopeless situation. The operation has been very successful in that there has been a dramatic reduction of more than 80% in the numbers using the central Mediterranean route. It does not mean that we are not in the business of meeting our commitments under the safety of life at sea, SOLAS, convention. In the context of the Operation Sophia missions, we have rescued hundreds of migrants. Nevertheless, the focus was primarily on disrupting the model used on that side.

A number of Deputies spoke about air traffic control. I am trying to consolidate the resource and build it up. We are providing a service from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. on the basis that we need to husband the resource, with a view to ensuring we can build it back up and move back to providing a 24-hour service. That is a decision I had to make with the Minister. People often accuse me of not cutting my cloth to measure, but that is an example of where we had to look at the resources available in the context of the constraints on the utilisation of that resource.

On the utilisation of the budget, we have a high level planning and procurement group, HLPPG. It deals with how we expend resources within the Defence Forces. It is done in collaboration with the Department of Defence in order that there is due diligence and governance in expenditure in terms of the processes used in tendering and organising competitions in meeting the requirements of the public service pay and spending code.