Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

It was abandoned because the relevant legislation provides that overseas service is confined to members of the Permanent Defence Force. The Reserve Defence Force members are not members of the Permanent Defence Force but it was hoped to temporarily integrate members of the Reserve in the Permanent Defence Force. I refer to the members of the Reserve who had done the integrated training and expressed an interest in going overseas. Unfortunately, the recruitment ban of 27 March has prevented us from recruiting people into the Permanent Defence Force and therefore we cannot send the Reserve Defence Force members overseas.

There are two obvious ways around this. The first is to change the legislation which is a rather tortuous process because there is much legislation backed up already. We will be changing the legislation in due course, but as a general amendment to defence legislation which will incorporate a number of other matters as well.

The other way would be to get an exemption from the Department of Finance, as the Deputy suggested. As I stated, we are looking at various issues related to how the embargo impacts on the Defence Forces, both permanent and reserve. When we have worked our way through those matters, I hope to speak to the Minister for Finance and to discuss the question of exemptions with him. However, I must tell the House that when I am discussing exemptions with the Minister for Finance my focus will be on the availability of the Defence Forces to do their job, as Deputy Deenihan stated, both at home and abroad.

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