Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

I intended to address that point earlier when it was mentioned by Deputy O'Shea. Although I am certain no one in the House believes it, we cannot work on the assumption that the economy will never recover. Of course the economy will recover. We are under no obligation to rush out and sell those sites immediately. However, I understand from some of my officials that we have received some preliminary inquires about the lands even though they have not yet gone to tender and I have no intention of providing for that in the foreseeable future. Deputy O'Shea referred to the short and medium term, but it depends on what is meant. No one can say with certainty when the economy will recover sufficiently to allow us to yield the desired value from those sites, but it will happen. They will be an asset of the Defence Forces which we can sell and then reinvest the proceeds, as agreed with the Department of Finance, in building up the infrastructure, equipment and training to the benefit of the Defence Forces, especially for foreign missions.

I refer to the €500,000 mentioned by Deputy O'Shea. This is the estimate I have received for the immediate costs of transfer. It refers to the minimum necessary to enable the troops to move. That is all that can be spent in the short term and I understand that amount will be sufficient. Let us not forget that built into the cost of the move is the fact that we will spend €2.5 million in the next three years to improve further the facilities to which the troops will move.

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