Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State might write to the committee to clarify what "net surrender" means. The Minister of State accused me of making a misleading statement to a radio station. I was quoting a reply to a question on March 2019, as Deputy Chambers said. The reply stated that there was €29.4 million in savings under Vote 36. The net surrender for 2018 was €17 million. We have to conclude because of divisions in the Dáil Chamber. We have our next joint committee meeting on 17 December. Will the Minister of State send a letter clarifying the issue regarding expenditure, what is not drawn down and what is returned? Deputy Chambers and I quoted from the Minister of State's parliamentary question replies. Deputy Barrett asked questions about the obligations and service of people who join the Defence Forces. If we could have written responses about that for the next meeting, we would appreciate it.