Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

Who is at fault for the delay in finalising the report? Is it due to issues the Department had with the report or is it due to the consultants? As I asked in the question, and the Minister did not reply, was there a penalty clause for the report being late? It is most important that the Defence Forces are serviced by a proper medical corps. Both the PwC report in the 1990s and the first White Paper strongly recommended that there should be an establishment of 46 in the medical corps. At present, there are only 23. Missions such as the Chad mission are very demanding physically on our troops, both in terms of preparing them for the mission and when they are in the battle theatre. There is also the issue of the general health of our military personnel and the fact that there is a very high absentee rate in the Irish Defence Forces, compared with the rate in other countries. That is attributable to the fact that there is a deficiency in numbers in the medical corps. This is a matter of supreme urgency.

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