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

I can only say to the Deputy that he has a brass neck. When I came into the Department the position was, based on the funding that his party agreed with the troika, we would have been to maintain a defence force of personnel across the three services of more than 7,000. This Government made serious decisions to maintain the operational capacity of the Defence Forces and maintain their strength at 9,500. In that context the Deputy is referring to a comment I made to the effect that because of the nature of the work the Defence Forces need to do, much of it is not in the public domain but is to the benefit of the general public. One of the issues I have in mind in that context is the substantial work done by the relevant group in our Defences Forces in dealing with improvised explosive devices and neutralising them at the request of the civil power, that is, the Garda. On a weekly basis members of the Defence Forces put their lives at risk unsung in this context. The reference was simply to emphasise the importance of providing reasonable resources to the Defence Forces to ensure they can carry out their tasks in circumstances in which the general public is not always aware of the importance of the duties in which they are engaged.

See this speech in context