Mr. Martin Ryan:

On numbers and where we go, first and foremost, we are continuously told that people are the number one capability and I think everyone would be in agreement on that. However, we are now probably approaching a stage given our deficiencies in strength where if the taps were turned on in the morning in terms of recruitment and we had many applicants and tried to bring people in, I do not think we would have sufficient numbers or the ability to train a large number. We get to the following stage. Could the size of the organisation actually be increased by 500 or 1,000 a year if everything else such as retention measures was sorted and in order? That is a serious question we will have to ask. I do not know if it could. In addition, every single capability the Defence Forces has or states it has is impacted by our strength. That was evident last week.