Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I will try to be a little more brief than usual. There are many good questions there, to be fair. On the Mediterranean mission, the LE Samuel Beckettis due to be back on 5 December. It is another rotation of approximately eight weeks. The plan now is that at that point we will not replace the vessel because the anticipation is there may not be much traffic at that time of the year because the weather may make passage difficult. I certainly anticipate that, because of the success of the mission, we will send a ship back there early in the spring, perhaps in February or March. Having said that, we will assess the issue and if the Italians say they need us to stay, we will have to respond to that.

This was very new for us during the summer and the Naval Service had three weeks' notice to send a ship to the Mediterranean. This is putting much pressure on the service and it has performed really well, but it is affecting the other roles it must play. If we are going to have an approach that keeps a ship abroad permanently on different missions - it is currently in the Mediterranean - we must reflect on whether eight ships is enough for the Irish Naval Service. We have a responsibility in fisheries patrol and the role must be played as part of the Common Fisheries Policy. It is not just a voluntary action. If there is going to be a priority in the Government to maintain a ship in the Mediterranean, it will have resource consequences, just as keeping our Army in UNIFIL and the UN Disengagement Observer Force has resource consequences.

I must flag that idea but I believe in what we are doing in the Mediterranean, which is great work. I want to ensure we can continue to play a positive role in a very tragic humanitarian issue. We can reassess that close to the time. The current plan is to bring home the ship, assess the mission, learn lessons and look to provide the Italians with the assistance of a ship in the spring. That will be kept under review.

It would be a good idea to bring in the reservists. I can quote the White Paper and list everything we are committing to do for the reserves. It is a pretty strong statement. I accept we are not getting a flood of people looking to join and there are issues to be considered. We essentially have a reserve at half strength and that needs to change, so we will do it.

On the peace and leadership institute, I have spent much time talking and thinking about the issue and we made a strong commitment in the White Paper. This concept will grow but we need to do it properly. We will not do a rush job before the election, for example. We will put an experienced group of people in place to plan and grow this idea. We have money to spend on building what will essentially be a new university campus attached to the UN peacekeeping school. It will become quite a big institute in future. I will happily speak to the detail of this at a later stage.

Pay and conditions in the Defence Forces are linked to pay and conditions right across the public sector. We have a new pay agreement and it will kick in from 1 January, costing the Government an extra €300 million next year. That will be factored into the budget in a few weeks. The Defence Forces will benefit from that, like everybody else. We cannot do separate deals for the Defence Forces while leaving out other areas within the public sector. We would not get the money from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.