Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With regard to the land sales issue, I am on the record with regard to Cathal Brugha Barracks. We are going through a process that is appropriate and necessary but, certainly, my responsibility is to the Defence Forces. More than 1,000 people serve in Cathal Brugha Barracks. It is a considerably significant military installation in the heart of Dublin city. We are assessing that, but there are no preconceived outcomes or anything like that. As far as I am concerned, it is a very important part of our military infrastructure.

Deputy Brady asked about the figure with regard to land and premises sales. The figure is €200,000. It is relatively small in the bigger scheme of things. There are no big sales there. That is for sure.

Things are happening in terms of defence infrastructure, such as St. Bricin's medical facility in Dublin 7. The Deputy knows where that is. It is in a very strategic location in Dublin. The Land Development Agency is very interested in acquiring that. We will build a new medical facility in Baldonnel which is funded and will move ahead this year. I have made it very clear that we can only close one facility if we build a new modern facility. However, the St. Bricin's site can make a valuable contribution from a housing perspective. It is in a strategic location.

The Department has also had proactive engagement with the LDA following its interest in Collins Barracks in Mullingar for the development of housing. These facilities are not being used any longer by the Defence Forces. We look to strategically work with another arm of the State to ensure we can make a contribution from a housing perspective. I reassure the Deputy of that.

Since 2019, the Department of Defence has been provided with €3.6 million from the Dormant Accounts Fund. In 2019, Civil Defence was allocated €500,000 which was used to procure 16 4x4 passenger vehicles. In 2020, Civil Defence was allocated funding of €1 million to upgrade its fleet. In 2020, it was allocated another €1 million. The Army veterans associations were also allocated total funding of €300,000. Sail Training Ireland was allocated €50,000.

This year, Civil Defence has been allocated €500,000 to upgrade its fleet again. The Army veterans associations have been allocated another €200,00 in funding. That is the Dormant Accounts Fund element which is, essentially, capital injections on top of the money that we also allocate to Civil Defence.

I will move on to Deputy Berry's questions. First, I was quite involved in the design of the European peace facility because I wanted Ireland to be part of it. I did not want to be outside of that. Ireland, Austria and Malta have a particular perspective here that we want to contribute to a European peace facility in which the EU can effectively pool its resources to make an intervention in a part of the world and that can respond to conflict or instability in a way that promotes peace and so on.

However, there are two funds within the peace facility. One can fund lethal weapons and the other can fund other elements of the project that are not lethal weapons but can be helmets, gloves, fuel, medical kits, defensive vests and such. The same project can be funded by two funds: one for lethal weapons and the other for non-lethal weapons.

When we designed the European peace facility, we never envisaged that it would be deployed in the heart of Europe in response to an illegal war on Ukraine by Russia. That has now been used as the tool to fund and support the Ukrainian military in an effort to defend itself. It is a €500 million fund. Some €450 million of that is focused on lethal weapons and €50 million of it is focused on other equally important and necessary but non-lethal weaponry.

We contribute our full amount as a percentage of the €500 million. Some 1.9% is the allocation key, which is between €9 million and €10 million. This is the same as every other country but we focus our financial contribution on non-lethal weaponry, or the €50 million element of the fund. In percentage terms, we make the same contribution as any other country.

We are also looking at what contribution we can make in terms of actual stores of equipment. I have heard Deputy Berry call on me to look at providing Javelin anti-tank weaponry and so on. We have decided not to provide lethal weaponry but, even if we did, we do not have excess stockpiles of Javelins. I have looked at the infantry of equipment and asked for a report on that.

While it is true we have some, we also have a training use and obligations in terms of equipment linked to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, and so on. There is not a large stockpile of excess equipment that we could share, even if we wanted to. We have also looked at defensive equipment such as helmets, vests and so on. There are some limited excess stocks.

One of the areas we have extra stocks is in food parcels that would be very useful for soldiers in the field. We are looking at stocks we can share. However, most of our contribution will be financial to efficiently purchase equipment and stocks and get them in to Ukraine, as quickly as we can, in order that young men and women who sign up and join can get defensive equipment to protect themselves in the context of the war in Ukraine.

We are making a full contribution but it is important that people understand we have looked at all the options in terms of what is available and what is not. We are acting on the basis of providing as much product, as quickly as we can, using the efficient channels that are open to us to get product into people who need it in Ukraine.

In terms of the €23 million underspend, as it happens, a number of Departments had underspends last year. Some of that is linked to Covid. From our perspective, much of the building work that was due to move ahead last year was significantly behind schedule. We simply were not able to go on site for a significant portion of the year because of Covid restrictions. That stalled things.

We also tried to spend the majority of that money on procurement of equipment on which we expected to be able to sign off in December but will not be able to sign off until this month.

That was unfortunate because I certainly would have liked to have spent all of the money available to us last year. We cannot carry that money over because that is not the way the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform works. The conversation on how we should respond to the commission in respect of increased resourcing will need to take place in the context of the recommendations I will bring to the Government in June. The Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, will be central to those resourcing conversations because we cannot facilitate the level of ambition on structural and cultural change and increased resourcing contained in the commission report without an all-of-government commitment from the three party leaders and, of course, from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. All of that money has to deliver an outcome and must represent value for money because the availability of money is finite. We are competing with many other Departments which are also making claims from the national Exchequer. We have a very strong evidence base now from the commission report to make progress in this area.