Professor Brian MacCraith:

Absolutely. The Deputy will note that in our opening statement we quoted the strategic framework document from the Tánaiste and this notion that the Defence Forces should reflect contemporary Irish society. We also believe that one of the major levers of transformation of the culture in the Defence Forces will be the recruitment process. That is on our agenda. It is not the most immediate issue but it is certainly on our agenda for this calendar year. We will address that and some of our team has started to look at it as well. In our engagement with the Chief of Staff and his team, and certainly with the head of transformation and head of strategic human resources, these are the sorts of discussions we will be having.

They have also been developing, for example, a profile of the female soldier, which is an interesting development. The fact is that 7% of the Defence Forces is female yet there is no female above the rank of lieutenant colonel. These are issues to be addressed, we believe. We absolutely agree, in respect of the broader issue of diversity, that a successful outcome - this will not happen overnight - would be a composition of our Defence Forces that reflects the high level of diversity in Irish society so that it is something that can be embraced by all Irish society.