Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I agree with the Deputy. No country can defend itself. If we look at Ukraine, with a million soldiers, it is having to rely on the support of others. I appreciate that is a pretty different scenario or context but we all have to work with each other more broadly.

In terms of command and control, that is another piece of legislation I am working on. I have to make some final decisions on key parts of the legislation, but I want to progress that this year. Obviously, an important component of that is the chief of the Defence Forces. That is progressing and I want to move that along with the other amendment Bill.

In terms of being prepared more broadly and political defence preparedness, people are moving with the movements more broadly. If we look at more recent polls, people want us to do more. They see there are changing threats. We have to have more conversations based on that. While the Presidency should not be our sole focus for everything and I know it comes up a lot, it is an opportunity for us not to just focus on how we are going to keep people safe during the Presidency but to have a wider discussion. That is why the three key priorities I have outlined, the overarching priorities for the Presidency, are competitiveness, human rights and security. It will allow us to have those conversations with our other European colleagues. Many of those conversations people here at home do not hear. If you go to a Council meeting, depending on who they talk to, you will hear that the focus of the vast majority of countries is on spending on defence, how they can do more and how they can prepare people for the possibility of a ground invasion. There is a very different conversation happening in Europe to perhaps one that is happening here. It is important during the Presidency that we are able to have these honest conversations and to see what exactly others are doing and how then we respond to that, given our neutrality, the position we have had for years, and the fact that people want us to do more and to co-operate more generally.

In terms of cadet pay, as I referenced earlier, I really do want to try to make progress on this. While there is a particular structure through the public sector pay agreement and that has always been the route to try to address these issues, I have asked some of the team here with me to see if there are other ways in which we could explore levels. They might go into different ways in which we could look at trying to address the pay overall.

In terms of the apprenticeship class, as Deputy Callaghan said, this is a different contract, so the terms and conditions are somewhat different, but this is in an IR form, so we need to work through it and see if there is something that could be responded to there. As for the chaplains, and again, these are all issues I have discussed with the unions more recently, the chaplains form something that will require legislative change so I am looking at what that looks like and how quickly I can bring it forward. Obviously the Deputy is talking about perhaps bringing them in as members of the Defence Forces and all that entails. It is very much on my radar and is something I have discussed recently with the unions to explore what legislation would look like and how we could progress it more generally.