Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not aware that a large number of skilled personnel are actively disengaging from the Defence Forces. There has been no evidence to this effect since the announcement of the reorganisation. Retirement from the Defence Forces exceeded 500 in the first two months of this year. However, this derived from the facility available under the public service arrangements put in place to enable individuals to retire by 29 February while retaining pensions based on the previous salary position. As regards the current strength of the Defence Forces, the Deputy will be aware that as a consequence of recent retirements agreement was reached on the recruitment of 600 new recruits to the Defence Forces. Following analysis at the end of February, a gap in officer grade and of ordinary listed personnel was identified. In June last, we advertised for 600 new recruits to the Defence Forces, in respect of which we received more than 10,000 applications. Given the number of applications and the need to properly examine them, including undertaking the normal processes of medicals, interviews and so on, it was September before those to be recruited were identified. In excess of 400 new recruits are currently in training. The objective is to bring the strength of the Defence Forces as close as possible to the 9,500 target by the end of this year. Deputy Mac Lochlainn will be aware that this issue was raised and discussed at some length today during our discussions on the Defence Force Supplementary Estimate.

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