Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 15 October 2024
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence
Report of the Commission on the Defence Forces: Engagement with Chair of Implementation Oversight Group
3:10 pm
Mr. Eamonn Murtagh:
I will. I also note the Senator referenced the further evaluation of the lance corporal rank that was due to be completed by September. That is not completed as of yet but the hope and expectation is that it will be completed by the end of the year. We view that this further evaluation work will be completed by the end of the year.
The Senator referenced three different procurements. The first one I will deal with is the armoured fleet replacement. We have established a civil military team, which I am chairing along with a brigadier general to identify what our armoured fleet replacement needs specifically are. That work has been ongoing for a number of months. As to the plan for that work, what we are calling the needs phase was completed in or around May and the requirements phase was to be completed by quarter 1 of next year. I am comfortable enough that the requirements phase will be completed by quarter 1 of next year. Then we will see the detailed implementation plan going into acquisition and contract phase. In my line of sight currently, I am confident enough this requirements phase will be completed by that quarter 1 period.
We have linked the other two acquisitions. The two referred to by the Senator were the military radar, which I have deal with, and the anti-drone counter UAS systems. The team is looking at both of those projects parallel with each another. We see an awful lot of overlap between the requirements of both. The expectation is that the identification of our requirements, that is, the work of how and what we will acquire, can be completed by the end of this year in terms of a direction of travel for those. Ultimately, we think we will deliver against the timelines we have outlined in the detailed implementation plan, which for the military radar is into 2028 and for the anti-drone capability is more in the 2025 period because what is required there is of a lesser scale and complexity than the wider military radar piece.
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