Mr. Eugene Gargan: There is a material update as of the past 90 minutes or so. An Tánaiste wrote to me this morning and it would be useful before we proceed to inform the members of the joint committee where he stands. I begin by quoting one of the paragraphs, which will only take a moment. It is in response to our appearance here this morning. The Tánaiste states:

If I may, I will make a couple of observations on this. First, this engagement from an Tánaiste is very welcome. It is great to get his attention and focus on that. He is obviously very busy. However, I will remark on a few things. First, I doubt very much we would have received this letter had we not been appearing before the committee this morning. It is regrettable that it takes this level of focus to have that engagement. We have had mixed responses on the business case and that particular mechanism for trying to achieve positive change. We have a number of them still in flight. We are not necessarily satisfied they are as productive as they ought to be. They are very slow and cumbersome and we have had some that are in flight for the past number of years.

What the Tánaiste says here is he is going to look at which activities attract pay and which do not. That is the clear implication. We got this only this morning and have yet to have a proper discussion about it among ourselves. This does not remedy the core issue we bring before the committee which is that - it was our understanding this was the Government's intention - all proper military activities would be paid. Nobody wants to work for free. If there is no pay for something one does, it is literally worthless. We cannot attract people to Óglaigh na hÉireann if we are not going to reward what they do appropriately. We are very happy the Tánaiste wrote to me and the association but we are disappointed that the line he has taken is in line with that we have already heard from the Department in its defence of what it has done.

I thank the Cathaoirleach for indulging me. It was an important update.