Mr. Se?n Clancy:

We have answered a lot of questions on the Reserve, if the Senator will forgive me saying so, but on his specific points, I am conscious that the value for money review in 2013 to which he referred to, coupled with the single force concept, had a significant impact on the Reserve. The Senator referred to Belmullet. There was a time when we had in the order of 43 barracks, although I am open to correction on that. The Defence Forces is now situated in 13 effective centres. Our physical footprint has an impact on our ability to draw people into training in those centres. Somebody from Belmullet may not be inclined to go to Galway for training and so on. We are very conscious of all of those factors that have an impact. Of course, I would like to go back to the historical situation but we are not in that position. We have to deal with what we have today. That is why the office of Reserve affairs was a recommendation of the Commission on the Defence Forces. It is why it purposefully stood that up in one of the initial high-level action plans and why I am committed to ensuring we put the right footprint and the right enablers in place to start the regeneration process. I know that is frustrating for some of our current serving Reserve members. I am very conscious of that but I am also very conscious that the Reserve Defence Forces play an active part in Óglaigh na hÉireann. Óglaigh na hÉireann stands for the Permanent Defence Forces and the Reserve Defence Forces and long may that continue.