Mr. Conor King:

Yes, the strength in station. Not only that, the figures are artificially inflated by the number of junior, inexperienced personnel who have been taken in at the lower levels, including cadets and recruits. I have very close experience of this, as a former operational commander of a mechanised company in the Defence Forces training centre. We had an establishment for 140 private soldiers but had a strength of more than 190. Where we fell down was that we had an establishment for 34 corporals but a strength of only seven. We have all of these private soldiers who need mentoring, training and supervision but we have no qualified, non-commissioned officers or officers to train them. That is why the figures are artificially inflated.