Mr. Conor King:

The Deputy mentioned heads 6, 25 and 26 and membership of the oversight body. To my knowledge, the IRG was strangely specific regarding membership of the oversight body and it did actually specify what members it should have. It specified experts in certain areas and someone with experience in organisational transformation, and it also specified an ex officiomember, namely the Secretary General of the Department of Defence. The relevant head did not prohibit the general secretaries of the representative associations specifically; however, it did prohibit members of the Defence Forces from being members of the oversight body. When we spoke to the IRG, which sat for well over a year and did extremely important work, we were disappointed with the level of engagement. We spoke to it once, for about an hour and half. In that hour and half, we spoke about the value of and need for oversight. We are quite satisfied that our efforts in speaking to the IRG acted as some sort of catalyst for the return of oversight to Óglaigh na Éireann, but we did not expect to be removed from that oversight ourselves. We are satisfied, however, that the heads of the Bill provide for the expansion of the membership of the oversight body.

Moving on to the point the Deputy made on the value of membership of the oversight body for representative associations, we firmly believe we can provide much-needed context on what our members think, how they feel, what they need and what they want. We, like PDFORRA, represent well over 90% - 95% to 96% - of all commissioned officers and PDFORRA enlisted personnel. Therefore, we have been representative of practically every member of the Defence Forces since 1990. To ensure context, but also buy-in, which is very important in any transformation process, it is important that we be included. We believe we have much value to offer the oversight body and we want to offer this with a heart and a half.

There has been much unease among our members on coming back from visits to the oversight body in that they realised belatedly that neither RACO nor PDFORRA officials were in the room or invited to attend. We have been informed of considerable concern among our members in this regard. As mentioned in my opening statement, we have had 45 hurried minutes with the oversight body in nine months. We wanted to be part of the oversight body. I will defer to Mr. Guinan on this.