Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

My understanding is that there was a commitment to prepare a new White Paper in the previous programme for Government. It is also my understanding that the previous Government had no difficulty with initiating a re-organisation of the Permanent Defence Force at that stage to accommodate a strength reduction to 10,000 in advance of that process. The reality was when we came into government, the strength was going to fall substantially below that.

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