Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

It is planned to send 12 people on an initial pilot scheme. They will be recruited temporarily into the Permanent Defence Forces, PDF, to enable the deployment to take place, because the legislation provides that only members of the PDF can be sent overseas. When we are drafting legislation to allow members of the Defence Forces Reserve to be sent overseas on a regular basis, rather than by temporary arrangement as in this case, we will consider various issues. One of the barriers is conditions of employment and we must iron out the issue in that regard. We will learn some lessons from the initial deployment.

There have been 24 expressions of interest and I am informed that the people chosen will come from that group. They will be people whose personal circumstances, whether by arrangement with their employer or because they are self-employed, allow them to make the trip for six months.

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