Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

The reasons for the fall in the numbers are twofold. One reason is the limited amount of funding available from the December 2010 budget which applied to the Estimates for 2011. Funding was made available for no more than 200 recruits. Work is ongoing on the total numbers in the RDF and also the number of those actively in the reserve. There was always a significant difference between the two. The value for money review is just that; the Defence Green Paper may well address the issue of the future use of the RDF, what changes might be made to the overall benefit of the community and to the reserve itself. However, before we progress through that issue, some very serious decisions must be made during the month of November as we face into the December 2011 budget. I cannot anticipate those decisions. The man days provided for the reserve for training purposes for 2011 were substantially less than were provided for 2010 in the December 2009 budget. This is an issue.

The position of the reserve is somewhat on hold pending the completion of the two reviews being undertaken and the final difficult budgetary decisions that must be made.

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