Mr. Neil Richardson:

I would definitely be happy to respond to that question. Unfortunately, Reserve recruitment is particularly ad hoc. I will describe what happens to individuals like those mentioned. The closing date for the competition passes and the majority of applicants are contacted for the first time two months later. That is unusual and not great. It is a little sloppy. They are then called for a fitness test which is their first exposure to Defence Forces recruitment testing procedures. It could be another six or seven weeks later and the date might be changed at short notice. As a result, people start to get browned off. Those who make it through that stage come back for a medical examination which is arranged exclusively during normal working hours. Some may be asked just one day before to come into a barracks at 10 a.m.If they say no because they are in work, tough and away they go. The pool gets smaller and smaller because of an ad hocand very poorly organised competition. The small number at the very end consists of the dedicated ones who have stuck it out through the process.

Mr. Scanlon and I have trialled new recruitment methods in our own units, at the Defence Forces training centre at the Curragh or, in Mr. Scanlon's case, throughout the country on behalf of the Naval Service. We took our recruits from the closing date of the competition to induction, when they begin training. Last year my unit did it in nine weeks, while Mr. Scanlon's did it in eight. We found that if the testing stages could be organised rapidly in a formally correct way, the tempo would be kept up and people's interest maintained. That is reflected in the numbers brought into training at the very end. While my recruits from the 2018 competition were in training last year, other units throughout the country were training recruits from the 2017 competition. It took them nearly 18 months to achieve what Mr. Scanlon and I had managed to achieve in a matter of weeks. We developed the recruitment proposal to which I referred in my opening statement which is with the director of Reserve forces to formally structure the Reserve Defence Force, RDF, recruitment process each year in order that it would not be ad hoc and merely utilised whenever there was a gap in the timeline. We are very hopeful it will be implemented and in force by 1 April, when the new recruitment window opens. Otherwise the applicants who will apply online in April may not be sworn in until 2020, which is unnecessary. That is what causes the drop-off. Understandably, people become frustrated at the process. They have other time-related commitments and there are voluntary organisations that will take them in far more quickly than the Reserve. I call on the committee to support the proposal which is to make sure this formal and structured recruitment process would be implemented. It could be achieved and we would have good numbers once it was done.