Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I assure the Deputy that I am fully committed to ensuring that the Defence Forces are able to meet their various obligations, that they will retain the capability for doing so and that they will have available to them the assets they require. The Deputy might be interested to know that some targeted recruitment and promotion is still being carried out within the Permanent Defence Force in the context of the agreed employment control framework and subject to the resources available. To date in 2011 some 261 personnel have been recruited for general service. This very much takes cognisance of the need to ensure that we have available to us the critical personnel necessary to ensure that the Defence Forces can do what is required of them, both domestically and overseas, and that they are ready to be of assistance to the civil authorities in dealing with any emergency that may arise, be it climatic in nature or of some other type which we may not yet be in a position to anticipate fully.

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