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

There are a number of aspects to this. First of all, we do not say to every young person coming out of school to join the Army or whatever but I have met some people from Reserve Defence Forces who are specialists in technology. The opportunities are very significant in terms of added capacity particularly in a time of need such as Covid, a pandemic or whatever to have a ready reservoir of human capital. In my view it is building up human capital for the benefit of the State. It is a missed opportunity and we seem to have a problem in this country in terms of reserves. I remember all of the controversy about the Garda Reserve ten, 15 or 20 years ago. There was opposition to it. People were saying, "It's yellow pack", and that is the wrong attitude. We need to build up human capital to face the many threats we face. Particularly when emergencies happen in the public domain there would then be a bigger reservoir of people we could draw upon to help match any particular challenge. Plus, as the Deputy said, if young people join they may very well get a taste for it and decide to develop a career in the Defence Forces. We are very anxious to have progress on this issue now.