Mr. Eugene Gargan:

Trying to keep the tempo up, Deputy Berry asked a couple of things. Starting with overseas service, we are quite happy and delighted to congratulate our colleague, Captain Chris Slattery from 2 CIS, who was the first reservist to serve overseas in his technical capacity as a specialist. We are all delighted to see him achieve that. It was a milestone. My congratulations to him. I am delighted to put his name on the record.

I wish to raise one point while it occurs to me. On the numbers, I thank the Deputy again for summing the establishment numbers together and not just picking out the figure for the Permanent Defence Forces and recognising that there are two components, which are the Permanent and the Reserve of the Defence Forces. Contemporary military doctrine would advocate having a reserve that is multiple times the size of the fixed or permanent defence forces. It is entirely inverter – it is back to front in Ireland. Whether that is a product of our past or our political system, there are probably several theories that can go towards that. However, we are not in step with contemporary military doctrine. That is worth observing.

When we made our submissions to the commission, we were asked informally after we had put our ideas to the commission why we did not advocate for expanding beyond the just over 4,200 that we have established. Our response had to be that we had to fix the problem first. If we were to ask for 30,000, which would be in line with reservists for comparable country elsewhere, we would be laughed out of town. If you do not have 700 or 1,000 out of what you should have, then where do you hope to go?

The Deputy asked about the four Naval Service vessels. I will ask Mr. Richardson to address that.

On the focus of the Minister for Defence, I will take that and start with it. Again, we are delighted to have positive engagement with the Tánaiste. We are delighted that he speaks to us, we have a place at the table, we can air the issues with him and he listen carefully. However, given the challenges within the Defence Forces overall, it might appropriate to have a dedicated Minister. However, that is something for elsewhere. That is not something we have a policy on but I recognise the Deputy’s point on that.

The Deputy asked about the White Paper and the fact that none of the projects was sanctioned or went ahead. At one infamous meeting, we were given a presentation on the White Paper and absolutely nothing was done. It was astonishing that people had rocked up to the meeting.

They were embarrassed but they had to say this is the process by which they had engaged, how it all works and the mechanism of it but the outcome was that there was absolutely nothing-----