Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There has been a focus on all these issues as a result of the consultative forum on security. It appears that there is not a serious and credible defence force anywhere in the world that does not also have a serious and credible reserve defence force. In such circumstances, I would have thought that, prior to any discussions about what international military alliances we may potentially join, we would prioritise the establishment of a defence force that is fit for the primary purpose of providing defence at home. We cannot do that without the RDF being capable of acting as an ancillary support to the Permanent Defence Forces. If we take the evidence Mr. Richardson provided at face value and consider that everything he is telling us as factual, which I do, then the evidence we are being given is that rather than building Defence Forces that are fit for purpose, we are instead dealing with a Department of Defence that is overseeing the undermining of them.

I come from probably the last generation that recalls a period where in virtually every town and village across this State, on a particular evening of the week, one could see a group of people waiting for the FCA van, as it was called, to come and collect them. That was a unique group of individuals in every town and village. I recall it from my own town. Among that cohort would probably the most successful businessperson in the town, along with the young school leaver from the local council estate. Increasingly, towards the end, there was a good gender balance because young men and women were signing up to get what was invaluable experience for them with respect to training, capacity building and network building. It also provided an important services locally overseen by the Defence Forces. That was not perfect, as I am sure our guests will tell us, but in comparison, we now have the RDF, which offers the bare minimum. In many towns and villages, it is unheard of for somebody to be a member of the latter. I think of the popularity that was crystallised in a Saw Doctors song, which represented the rite of passage the FCA was for so many of our younger and older people for so long. That we have come to this point is a travesty.

I am sure somebody from the Department of Defence would challenge my assertion the Department is overseeing the systematic undermining of our RDF. The clearest argument the Department could present to us is the 1,000 applications in 2022 as evidence that it did everything in its power to recruit people. These are 1,000 people who, of their own volition, said they would like to become members of the RDF. Instead, at the outworking of that, fewer than 50 of these individuals were recruited as members of the RDF. The number given to us today of 1,430 current members of the Reserve is a travesty, a scandal and something that the committee should pursue vigorously with the Department.

I have a couple of questions. Mr. Richardson referred to Defence Forces regulation R5 and the need for it to be updated. He indicated that the RDFRA wrote to the Secretary General to raise concerns. If I am reading it right, the association has yet to receive an acknowledgement. That leads to the obvious question of what precisely is the relationship between the RDFRA and the Department of Defence. Are there gaps that need to be filled?

Moving to the association's recommendations, the first one is the need to fully resource the office of Reserve affairs. What will that look like, by which I mean what is required now that is not in place? We must have something practical instead of what has been mentioned. Mr. Richardson has mentioned, as I have, the very poor recruitment rate relating to the 1,000-plus applicants. Where are the gaps there? Senator O’Reilly mentioned some, but what would need to be done to turn the 1,000 applications into hundreds of recruits in a short period. The Senator and I live in a constituency where all the Army barracks were closed by previous Governments. I can think of three for sure across Cavan and Monaghan. How big of a miss is that for the RDF, in that there are not local centres in the same way as there was before? Is there scope to have local or county structures in place beyond what the Permanent Defence Forces barracks? I have other questions, but I will let others in and they might ask them. I will come back in at the end if time allows.