Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

The number of the Reserve Defence Force has been reduced from 24,000 a few years ago to just over 6,000. However, the international trend has been to increase the size of reserve defence forces. For example, many British army personnel in Afghanistan are from its reserve defence forces. We seem to be going the opposite way in Ireland and there seems to be a deliberate policy to reduce the numbers and to make the Reserve Defence Force irrelevant. I see huge opportunities for a vibrant reserve defence force in this country.

Why was the Reserve Defence Force not used during the recent "big freeze" and flooding? It was not used and its members were not asked, which is something that came up at their conference. It strikes me that we are going against the international trend, and the Government is not asking the reserves to be a necessary aid to the civil power, which is something they are supposed to do.

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