Mr. Neil Richardson:

I will take Deputy Carthy's point on what proper resourcing of the Office of Reserve Affairs looks like. When this office was designed, it was designed with an initial operating capacity number of staff, as well as a full operating capacity. Our argument is simple, which is to bring it up to its full operating capacity of staff as quickly as is humanly possible. For the last ten years, since the last reorganisation, Reserve matters have been dealt with by PDF staff who also had PDF matters to deal with. Therefore, as Senator Craughwell rightly said, before the last reorganisation, we were essentially independent with our own Permanent Defence Force staff taking care of us. Then, the reorganisation happened and we were lumped in with the PDF, into what had previously been Permanent Defence Force-only units. So, one day in 2013, the PDF woke up and we were there and they had to take care of us as well. That caused cultural issues. It understandably caused workload issues for the Permanent Defence Force as well. However, the sole remit of the Office of Reserve Affairs is to work on Reserve issues. If it has its full operating capacity of personnel, that would be 20-plus individuals whose day job would be to take care of the Reserve. To allow that to happen, though, there needs to be a regulatory underpinning. Certain positions or ranks within that office can only exist if other regulations are changed to allow that to happen. They need to be underpinned by regulations as much as by resources and personnel.

In terms of the recruitment gaps, as has been mentioned earlier, speed is key to this, as is medical resourcing. The various testing stages, such as fitness testing or interviews, do not really create problems. The logjam is always in the area of medicals. We get a lot of anecdotal information from our members where medicals are arranged, busloads of Reserve applicants are sent to them, and they are sometimes in transit when they find out that the medical testing has to be cancelled for whatever reason. Then, another date will be arranged, and that will come with low morale. Therefore, it is a matter of speed and medical resourcing.

Finally, there is the issue of local training centres. Yes, it is true that in the last reorganisation quite a number of training centres were closed down, but 20-odd training centres still exist around the country, although small numbers of reservists are active there. The problem with these is that there is no military equipment in these training centres. They do not even have access to the Defence Forces intranet system. Therefore, individuals cannot access manuals, training instruments, or whatever it might be that is provided on this Defence Forces intranet system. Therefore, they are completely and utterly cut off from the rest of the Defence Forces. Similarly, the units that went into these training centres are exclusively infantry, or foot soldiers, whereas many of these training centres are colocated with third level institutions, such as Dundalk IT, DkIT, and the Atlantic Technological University, ATU, in Sligo. All these places have RDF training centres nearby. Instead of recruiting medical students or engineering students into the medical corps, the engineering corps, or whatever it might be, the infantry units that are placed there are probably the least attractive for third level graduates or third level students. It is about pairing the right units with the right location.

Senator Craughwell also made a valid point about the old FCA vans. Much of Defence Forces transport does not get used after normal working hours, but it could potentially be used by RDF drivers to drive around those locations, pick people up and bring them into the main training centres. Again, that is an underutilised resource. It is something I am sure the Office of Reserve Affairs will look at, but the attitude to all these training centres has been unintelligent to date. They are completely cut off from their parent barracks in many ways.