Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

It is mainly on the civilian employee side. I understand there are considerable opportunities available in that area, but the framework will have to be discussed with the stakeholders. It would be very unwise and unhelpful for a Minister or anybody else to lay out a narrow construct as regards what should be achieved over the period. Yesterday, I engaged with the two representative organisations and there are a whole lot of other players in this area that have an input to all of this. I do not believe any Department has achieved as much as the Department of Defence and the Defence Forces over recent years. They are very well placed to deal with these challenges and very well equipped, which can be an enormous cost.

There is an ongoing cost, for example the purchase of the two ships, that is factored into the accounts and safely dealt with. There is a White Paper process and in the context of that some work has to be done on the four year element. To embark on the ten year White Paper process without taking account of the parameters of the 2011-14 element would seem to me to be ill-advised. That may delay the White Paper process somewhat, although my hope is that it can be accommodated within it. The ultimate point lies in deciding what is required of the Defence Forces by the Government and the State. That will be set out to a considerable extent in a White Paper. It is a very big and important job that is gradually coming to be better understood, and this, in a sense has to be the defining centre of how one operates all that flows from that.

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