Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will keep it very tight. I welcome the Minister of State and his officials. It is good that the Minister of State wanted to engage with us. Having said that, maybe I was ill-prepared for the meeting or my expectations were different, but I am disappointed and underwhelmed by what the Minister of State has to say to us. He says he wants to listen to our views but at the same time, for anyone looking in from outside, White Papers and Green Papers are like dancing on the head of a pin. People want to know where the beef is and what the Minister of State's vision is for the Defence Forces. We cannot treat White Papers and Green Papers as an ongoing circle of bureaucracy.

The Defence Forces are highly respected and held in high regard by the public, and rightly so. As Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan said, their work as peacekeepers in the UN is exemplary and something of which we are all very proud. We are also proud of the profile the Army has in many State functions. I particularly welcomed its activities in schools during the 1916 centenary. It is also lovely to see the Army band in communities. When there are weather and climate crises, the Army plays a role and this is also appreciated. These are the upsides as far as I can see but there are some serious downsides. The Minister of State said the White Paper is not the place to speak about Army pay or all of the resignations and buy-outs from the Army. Perhaps we will have another day for that. Is the Minister of State concerned about morale in the Defence Forces? The morale of any force, be it the Garda, Army or Naval Service, is important. It is important for us as committee members to know whether the Minister of State is happy with the state of morale in our Defence Forces.

Insofar as the White Paper deals with it, will the Minister give us an update on where we are with Army property? There has been a lot of speculation that some of our big barracks, such as Cathal Brugha Barracks, will be used for housing. I am not saying it is good or bad; I would just like to know the future of Army property in rural towns, such as Listowel, where we used to have slua halls and FCA property. What is the future for this type of property, as the Minister of State sees it?

Does the Minister of State have plans to inject new life into the RDF? Recently in the Seanad I mentioned to him that I thought the FCA was an exemplary force that gave a lot of young people in Ireland training in life skills, a sense of patriotism and something useful. The Army has a very low profile in the country. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I am not looking for militarisation. The Army has a very low profile, particularly outside of Dublin. This is something the Minister of State could look at by reviving and putting more funding into voluntary reserve forces, such as the FCA used to be.

The Army has done very well so far in the centenary of commemorations. We are halfway through the commemoration the War of Independence. Shortly, we will move on to commemorating the Civil War. There were no angels on either side of that terrible sad divide and republicans, no more than anyone else, committed atrocities. Nonetheless, some major atrocities were committed by the State and the army of the Free State in the name of the people. Statements were made in the Dáil by the Minister for Defence at the time that need to be corrected. Has the Minister of State taken an advanced view on how this will be handled? It is a very sensitive area and nobody is looking for triumph in this regard, particularly not me. It would be as well for the Minister of State to have a plan to deal with these issues as they will undoubtedly arise.