Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

A large number of issues have been raised, which I will endeavour to go through as best I can.

I am happy with the timeframe set for the commission. I am a believer in getting on with things. Long timeframes often do not work very well. The Chairman and Deputy Stanton will recall that we completely transformed the Department of Justice in nine months. Sometimes if one wants to get a job done, one needs to get on and get it done. To address Deputy Clarke, when I said we would not get all the issues covered I meant that there is such a huge range of issues that the commission could be extended for another ten years and we would still be at it. However, I take her point that at the end of our work, we may make suggestions that a certain bundle of issues should be dealt with in some way. That would be quite sensible.

On issue identification and the consultation process, believe me, we will look through everything in the consultation process and see if we have missed issues in our initial issue identification and if we need to add to that. We will definitely do that as thoroughly as we can. To be perfectly frank, we have received at least twice as many submissions as we were expecting. We are, therefore, a little overwhelmed with love but we will go through them. The secretariat and some of the members are already doing that and I have been reading through them. I thank the Deputy for her submission, which I have read, and for her comments on the webinar.

On funding, our terms of reference state we should have regard to the level of Government funding. I am taking that at face value so we will have regard to it. If one thinks about it, we would hardly make recommendations while completely ignoring the budgetary implications of what we were proposing. We would not be foolish enough to do that. We will have regard to the level of funding in another way, I think. Again, we have not reached this point in our work yet but I guess we will have a look at the level of funding in this country compared with the funding of defence forces in other countries, as a contextual issue where funding is concerned.

On the role of the Chief of Staff, we are certainly looking at high-level command and control structures within the Defence Forces, and that includes the Chief-of-Staff role. We are not looking at the totality of the relationship between the Department and the Defence Forces. I know some people felt strongly that we should do that. My view is that we have enough to do as it is. There is another process in place, namely, an organisational capacity review within the Department. I am familiar with those processes; they are quite demanding. At some stage towards the end of our work, our process and the organisational review must have some sort of conversation.

On the search and rescue contract, it would not have been reasonable to expect the Department of Transport to postpone the contact in some way until we had finished our work. That would not be realistic. Life goes on. A commission has been set up but the Defence Forces and the Department are making decisions every day as we continue our work. That means that we are sometimes standing on moving sand but that is just life. On that basis, I would not have expected the Department of Transport to defer the contract. However, the issue of the role or potential role of the Air Corps in search and rescue is a live issue for us. I will put it that way.

Cybersecurity is absolutely critical. We have our national cybersecurity strategy. The roles of the various bodies are set out in that strategy and they are also set out in the White Paper on Defence.

The cybersecurity strategy was produced in 2015 and updated in 2019. The White Paper on Defence had the same timing so they are both very much in line. They set out the policy decisions on the role of the various bodies. The cybersecurity strategy sets out very clearly the interlinkage between cyber defence, which is broadly within the remit of the Defence Forces, overall cybersecurity which is the responsibility of the National Cyber Security Centre, NCSC, and cybercrime, which is primarily the concern of An Garda Síochána. These areas interlock and one could argue that everything should be put in one box but that is not always the best approach because one needs all of the skill sets that these bodies together bring. We work within the policy framework that has been set out and will continue to do so but the committee can be absolutely assured that the cyber area will feature in a very significant way in our report.

On the question of the Reserve, a number of issues were raised by Deputies Clarke and Stanton. We do not have a mandate to cover veteran affairs as such so we cannot deal with issues pertaining to Defence Forces veterans. While these are important issues, we will not be seeking a mandate on them because we have so much ground to cover as it stands. However, we will be looking at the potential of the Reserve to recycle skills from people who are leaving the PDF. Of course, that is one of the issues that arises in relation to the Reserve. One of the key issues that people have raised with us is the potential of the Reserve to recruit in high-level specialist skills, particularly in the cyber space but also in medicine, engineering and a host of other areas. This is a really important issue, although I do not want to prejudge our conclusions. That said, this does not pull away from other potential roles for the Reserve in terms of providing surge capacity to the PDF. A specialist role and a surge role are both being raised with us.

I accept the point that the needs of the Reserve are different to those of the PDF in terms of location. By its nature, the Reserve is spread all over the country but we have not broached that issue yet. I have already spoken about the ICTU issue so I will not go back over that again. The issue of the pay review body is beyond our terms of reference. Our terms of reference do contain a comment on the process of moving from our work to the subsequent work of the pay review body, if and when it is established. Competition with private sector pay and the loss of staff is a real issue but we are not going to get into the question of pay rates. One of the problems we struggle with throughout the public service is that when we try to modernise in order to be a public service or a defence force of the 21st century, we train people to a high level in ICT, cyber and other areas and, of course, the moment they are trained, they become extremely valuable and can command very high salaries in the private sector. To be frank, that is a struggle for us all but it is a particular struggle for the Defence Forces, undoubtedly. The issue can be addressed in a variety of ways, including by making the Defence Forces an attractive place to be. One of the things I have found, having spoken to members of the Defence Forces, is that they do have a strong culture of wanting to be in and to stay in the Defence Forces, and we can work with that. Ultimately, we must provide conditions that people find attractive. That speaks to pay, with which we cannot deal but it also speaks to other issues of conditions, particularly issues of career progression which are very important in the context of encouraging people to stay.

Employment protection was referred to by Deputy Stanton in the context of the Reserve and that issue has also been raised with us. We have received submissions from ICTU and IBEC to our consultation and there may be grounds there for some discussion with those bodies. That said, we cannot negotiate or anything like that because we do not have that authority but we can make recommendations in this space. Deputy Stanton also mentioned the gain to industry from turnover in the Defence Forces. This is something I am personally familiar with through my family. It must be borne in mind that people who leave the Defence Forces are not lost to the country. If they have particular skills, those skills are lost to the Defence Forces, which feel that loss but I have no doubt that the result is some very able people moving into Irish industry.