Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This brings me to the core point I was going to make. I will be meeting RACO and I will be making this point. What struck me most and worried me most in RACO's presentation to the committee was the concern articulated about my position of me saying that I prioritise cultural change above all else. RACO articulated an unhappiness with that. There has been some resistance to the idea that we need to transform the culture within our Defence Forces. This arises from many of the issues that resurfaced in the IRG report. This goes to the heart of morale in the Defence Forces. It goes to the heart of safety and a safe workplace environment in the Defence Forces. I was disappointed with the stance RACO took. I was surprised the committee did not pick up on that.

When the report was published, we had sessions here and Dáil debates. I was struck by how quickly afterwards the Government and I are being criticised, not to the exclusion of everything else, but for making statements to the effect that a primary consideration was cultural change. That is now being criticised. It is almost as if, because it happened a couple months ago, we should move on. Some of this goes to the heart of the issue. We need to be very open about this.

Because we did the strategic overarching framework to put everything together so that there would not be duplication between the different reports, there may be a fear that somehow the commission's objectives would be slowed down. That is not the case. There will be a further distribution of increased levels of national development plan, for example, to the capital, but that has to be determined. A lot of work needs to be done on procurement of the bigger-ticket items like radar. The first Airbus C295 plane came in to Baldonnel last June. As I understand it from a tweet yesterday, the second is also there now. These are two significant additions with a lot of high-powered equipment.

The issue facing the Defence Forces is that of recruitment and retention. This is not something that began today or yesterday, but it is an ongoing issue. Somebody asked about psychometric testing. It is not about dropping standards. When I became Minister eight or nine months ago, I learned then that the first thing a young person who might be interested in joining the Army has to do is the psychometric test. I did not think it was the most encouraging or welcoming sort of opener. If we look at the numbers of people who apply, we can see that the conversion rate is poor. We need to work on this. That is why we brought in the human resources organisation because we need to try to do things on recruitment. It is not about dropping standards, but I would look at it through different prism. If somebody wants to join our Defence Forces and is 80% there from the physical fitness point of view, our attitude now should be to work with that person who wants to join the force and get them to the 100% as opposed to weeding them out because they are not cutting it.

I also think we have to look at the psychology of 18- to 20-year-olds today, who are much more mobile than 20-year-olds of ten or 20 years ago. How do we get them to think of a career in the Naval Service, Air Corps or the Defence Forces? There are wonderful opportunities in the Defence Forces in terms of courses, programmes, progression and so on. I accept the Chair's point about morale generally. A lot has been done, but a lot more remains to be done. The recruitment side is where, to me, the big challenge is. The Chair put his finger on something with the working time directive. However, we have gone to the military looking for a system. We are now agreed that we are going to develop a system to facilitate the introduction of the working time directive. There is still more work to be done. There has been intensive work on the working time directive. It is important. It has not been slow under my watch.