John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Before the Chief of Staff comes back in, I want to go back to the working time directive. He said the majority of activities fall within the scope of the directive. To follow up on Senator Craughwell's point, have the Chief of Staff or his subordinates asked for any areas to be exempted from the directive? For example, do they see operations involving bomb disposal, naval patrols or aid to the civil power as being covered by the working time directive?

The Chief of Staff mentioned the figure for those currently serving in the Defence Forces as 7,917. That is down 481 people in 13 months. This means that since the commission's report was published last February, nearly 500 members of the Defence Forces have left. Does the Chief of Staff see that as members of the Defence Forces having no confidence in the ability to implement the commission's recommendations and voting with their feet? The institutional loss to the organisation of their doing so is immense. When does the Chief of Staff think there will be a reversal of the haemorrhaging of members we are seeing? Over the last month, another 1% - over 100 members - have left, even though the commission report is there with all its recommendations for how to fix the chronic problems within the Defence Forces. When are we going to see a reversal of the haemorrhaging?