Mr. Neil Richardson:

I will answer the questions the Deputy asked on our contact with the Department and will pass the questions on recruitment to my colleague, Mr. Scanlon.

We predominantly deal with the Defence Forces personnel policy branch; it is our main point of contact within the Department. We encounter issues around asking questions about and accessing documents which are relevant to us and which we know are circulating. We are regularly told that it is an inappropriate time to pass on these documents. We understand that there is background policy work which might have to be done before it is ready to be shown to a representative associations, but this happens so consistently and regularly that it is problematic for us. We feel our voices are not being heard and are not being listened to. When we ask a question we are fobbed off, for lack of a better phrase.