Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

The role of the Defence Forces is laid out in the White Paper on Defence. It commits the Defence Forces to being actively involved in providing a broad range of services at home and challenging deployments overseas.

I have previously outlined the position on the forthcoming mission to Chad and the House will be familiar with the other overseas missions with which the Defence Forces are deployed. In addition, the Defence Forces have ongoing operational commitments at home in accordance with the roles set out in the White Paper. Some examples include fishery protection, cash escorts, prisoner escorts, guarding public installations, etc. In order to sustain the level of operational deployments the Defence Forces are undertaking, the Defence Forces must continuously undertake appropriate training.

Fitness is an integral part of overall Defence Forces training, with the objective of ensuring that personnel have appropriate fitness levels to perform the challenging tasks they are expected to perform. The personnel of the Defence Forces are excellent role models in that regard and I appreciate Deputy Deenihan's recognition of that fact.

Enhancing the health and fitness standards of military personnel formed one of the cornerstones of the modernisation process in the Defence Forces. There has been a major effort in implementing appropriate regimes of physical training. However, the Defence Forces do not have the mandate or resources to tackle this issue for the population as a whole. Accordingly, there are no plans for the Defence Forces to take on a role with regard to the fitness levels of school children.

The health of the general population is a matter for my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, and provisions with respect to school curricula are a matter for my colleague, the Minister for Education and Science.

See this speech in context