Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 27 February 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence

General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (Resumed)

Professor Brian MacCraith:

Of course not. The consensus view of this body is that the composition of the body is the remit of the Minister and the Government. Whatever the Government decides in that regard, of course, we will act accordingly. Whatever happens, I believe that the representative associations have that critical role to play and we will be asking them to spend a lot of their time with us and to give us their insight on an ongoing basis. From our meetings with them, it was very clear that it would be important to have that ongoing dialogue and we are committing to that on a regular basis. Even their connection to members is hugely impressive but in terms of a transformation of culture, I absolutely believe that both representative associations are important in that regard and we will convey that again in our next meeting. We hope both bodies can join us at our next in-person meeting in March. Those invitations will issue in the next few days. They were planned anyway so that is what we hope will happen.

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