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

We can all do that, but what we are doing here will span across multiple Governments and whoever is in government in three, four, five or ten years' time will be part of implementing these issues. I have done what I can to try to make this as factual as possible and to keep politics out of it.

I go to the naval base pretty regularly. I live very close to it. Every time I go for a run, it is generally to the naval base. I am very familiar with the infrastructure there. What I would say to everybody who is thinking of joining the Defence Forces and to the people who are currently serving in the naval base is that we understand, only too well, the pressures in the naval base but we have a capital investment plan that is worth approximately €72 million over the coming ten years for Haulbowline.

We have just opened a new accommodation unit which is probably the best accommodation unit of any, in any of the barracks or military facilities we have in the country. It is phenomenal, if people get a chance to see it. I opened it just a few weeks ago. We have opened a new jetty facility there as well, which significantly improved the capacity, both for visiting vessels and our own vessels in the naval base. We will putting a new gym facility in there. I hope we will be able to upgrade the dive unit facilities too. We are investing in a whole range of other things such as a new accommodation block and a new office block and, of course, we are reconditioning the whole island as well, with regard to the former Irish Ispat site, where the State is certainly committed to spending another €20 or €30 million, if necessary, to completely refurbish and make it safe. There is a lot going on in Haulbowline with regard to Government investment to improve the quality of life and work there.

If one is in the Naval Service in a few years' time, one's time and demands at sea will be very different to what they are now. One will be, in all likelihood, in a double-crewing arrangement, which means that ships will have two full crews, rather than one.

That means less time at sea and a quicker turnover between being at sea and being back at land training and so on. The quality-of-life issues, which we are trying to recognise and design into what the Irish navy - as opposed to the Naval Service - will look like over the next few years, are quite significant. Next year alone, there are two new ships coming in from New Zealand. That will be in the first quarter of the year, hopefully in January or February. They are smaller vessels but still modern, predominantly for the Irish Sea. We will also be developing a base on the east coast and the west coast so the voyage times for those ships getting back to base will not be so long. That is also about improving quality of life and recognising family pressures for both men and women in the Defence Forces and the Naval Service. I hope to also simplify and enhance the allowances for going to sea.

With all those things added together, the Naval Service should be a very attractive option for people leaving school and college today, and hopefully an attractive option for people who may have been in the Defence Forces or the Naval Service to come back in through some form of direct entry. The accommodation will be better, the work environment in Haulbowline will be enhanced significantly and the quality of the ships will be modernised. We have just decommissioned three ships, which were all 40 years old. We do not have any ships now in that category with regard to going to sea on an older vessel versus a more modern one. While the L.É. Niamhand the L.É. Róisínare not the newest vessels in our fleet, they are still pretty modern. There is a huge step change in the quality of accommodation on the newer ships over the older ones.

I am very positive about the future of the Naval Service. We have had a lot of challenges. There is very aggressive headhunting from the private sector because the people in our Defence Forces are good people and are a real asset to the private sector if it can get them. We have to find a way of putting a package together that makes serving in the Naval Service and the Defence Forces generally more attractive. That is a big part of what we are trying to do here. That includes women as well as men.

To answer Deputy Clarke's questions on the gender side, when the commission made that recommendation for 35%, it raised an awful lot of eyebrows. We are at 7% at the moment, which is slightly better than where we were a few years ago but not much. The commission was insistent that we need one third of our Defence Forces to be women in the future. That is the best way of dealing with a lot of the cultural issues, which have been very problematic. That is what happens when there are 95 men for every five women in the Defence Forces, or close to that. Everybody, including the commission, accepts that getting to that 35% figure is going to take quite some time.