Mr. Se?n Clancy:

I thank everyone for their kind remarks. Members are always welcome to visit any installation in the State that belongs the Department of Defence or the Defence Forces. We are more than welcoming. It is important that, as we say, we get ourselves outside the walls. One way of doing that would be by having members of committees such as this come in and engage openly with us. Understanding grows through that engagement, which is important. It is also important, as I said earlier, that the State and its people what the Defence Forces do, how they do it, the shortcomings and challenges they face and the opportunities that exist.

There are a number of overlapping themes, particularly between Deputies Clarke and Brady, that I might try to address together, if that is okay. I will come back to Deputy Lawless’s questions as well as best I can.

I wish comment on the staff complement of 11,500 and civilianisation. This is an important matter The most overriding principle is that the organisation has to have capacity to absorb and capacity to grow. In that context, a complement of 11,500 is correct and sufficient. It is set down very clearly in level of ambition 2, which was set by the Government. In my view, it is the right figure to grow towards. We have a challenge with regard to recruitment and retention. It is an ambitious challenge to get to 11,500, but we are determined to grow towards that. The timeline under level of ambition 2 notwithstanding, level of ambition 3 will see further potential growth of the organisation.

Civilianisation is not a new concept to military forces. Military forces in First World countries in particular would have civilian participation, particularly in specialist, analyst and technical roles. That is accepted. The number of 2,000, as outlined in the Commission on the Defence Forces report, to grow to 11,500, is inclusive of civilian personnel. That is also very clear. Civilianisation is not a new concept for the Defence Forces either. We have many areas in which we have civilians, as the Deputy rightly pointed out, in contractual roles, but we also have them in permanent roles. The fisheries monitoring centre, for instance, has grown over the past 24 months in the context of the changes to European borders. In that regard, we have had a capacity that we needed to increase. We have done that through a combination of civil and military personnel and analysts. We have done it in several other areas of the organisation also. That has been ongoing for many years; it just has not been as overt as it has been through the commission report. I am satisfied that appropriate civilianisation in appropriate roles is a roadmap that we should not be afraid to embrace in order to make the organisation fit for purpose as we go forward. That is the right approach to take. Once we have identified and analysed, that will come as part of our overall restructuring.

As the Deputy may be aware, the Commission on the Defence Forces gave us some handrails, if you like, regarding the distribution of the 2,000. That goes to another part of the Deputy’s question. The commission gave us good broad-brush boundaries, as it understood them, and a recommendation with regard to the three services and how the application of the additionality would come about. That was not restrictive or constrictive; it was a guide. We will use that as part of the redesign and restructuring of the Defence Forces. We will take it into account, although, as I said, I would suggest that we are not constricted by it. I hope that answer is satisfactory.

There were a couple of questions Deputies Clarke and Brady on the Reserve. I am hugely proud of the Reserve Defence Force. It has a major role to play in the future. We operate the Reserve on a single-force basis. There have been challenges around that in terms of regeneration. That is the purpose of the office of reserve affairs. The position of director of the Reserve was taken away in the last re-establishment of the organisation of the Defence Forces in 2012 if I recall correctly. I stand open to correction on that. There was a lack of a focal point for the Reserve thereafter. As a result of the report of the Commission on the Defence Forces, we have a clear means by which we want to expand the Reserve Defence Force and, in turn, expand our capability as a whole. The establishment, as it is laid down at the moment, is getting its 4,069. We have a strength of approximately 1,600 at the moment. That is way below where we want to be.

One of the Deputies identified challenges we have encountered, particularly in the past 24 months. In one sense, Covid did not help us in that space. Our medical capacity was one area where there was a blockage in terms of what was referred to as our recruitment capacity during that period. Notwithstanding that, we had an expediential need to recruit into the Permanent Defence Force at the same time as a result of our high rate of turnover. All of these together did not serve the Reserve. Most importantly, the single clearest focal point we were lacking was in the context of somebody to drive and generate the Reserve itself. I corrected that, as recommended by the Commission on the Defence Forces. The regeneration, as it is laid down in the recommendation in the commission's report, is under way.

There are clear means by which we intend to try to regenerate the Reserve Defence Force. For example, one of the contracts referred to - the civilianisation of a particular area - related to the induction medicals for Reserve personnel and new recruits to the Defence Forces. That contract will enable up to 18,000 recruitment medicals to be done on an annual basis. I am confident that a successful outcome from the tender process, which is under way, it will enable an enhanced recruitment process for our Reserve and Permanent Defence Force equally.

That goes back to the very heart of the single-force concept, which I spoke about earlier, whereby we need our Reserve Defence Force to be at the same level, as far as is practicable, as our Permanent Defence Force. The legislative Acts enabled through this House to which I referred earlier foresee the Reserve Defence Force as participating fully in that regard. It was enabled to do that throughout the Covid pandemic. Of course, we know that overseas deployment has now also been opened up to the Reserve. We have a standard and we expect all those forces with an ambition to go overseas to meet a standard and it would be the same standard. We depend on that unity of effort of the totality of the organisation for our expertise and professionalism, particularly in our overseas deployments.

On the medal for the HSE role for the Reserve-----