Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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I have a couple of general questions to ask and some comments to make.

I thank the Minister for his presentation and welcome the recruitment to which he pointed.

It is certainly something we all welcome enthusiastically. Equally I am sure everybody in the Houses will support the allocation of additional moneys to meet the pensions demand. It is a statutory requirement, but, in addition, we want to see Defence Forces pensioners being properly looked after.

The fact that we engaged in a similar exercise in 2013 and 2014 raises questions about how the Department of Defence conducts its business in respect of its annual Estimate. The Minister has indicated that for the third year in succession the number retiring from the Defence Forces has been underestimated. Will the explain the reason for this to us? We like to think the Estimates process has integrity and stands up to scrutiny. Sadly, we have seen the Department of Health come forward with bogus Estimates for several years. I am not suggesting that is happening in this instance, but there are questions about why it is happening again. The moneys are not enormous in the context of overall Government spending and, as the Minister has pointed out, represent 1% of defence spending, but measured against the background of the country’s spending far less on defence than many of our European colleagues the amount is quite significant. I can read and understand what the Department is doing in reallocating expenditure in subheads A3 to A6, inclusive, but from where is the €6.5 million in subhead A2 coming? What are the initiatives that might have been undertaken that are not being undertaken?