Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State still has not answered my question of when it is expected to reach 9,500 personnel. It is not something that can be arrived at magically. There are ways and means of achieving the number and the Minister of State knows the difficulties in the recruitment process. They exist every year and we must plan to deal with those difficulties, ensure we can overcome them and reach the targets we have set.

It was suggested by my predecessor on this bench that some of the defence budget is often held back to deal with an overrun on the Army pension side. Is this true? It certainly seems plausible when the Department's ministerial brief indicates there has been a continuous structural under-provision for the Army pension, resulting in successive Supplementary Estimates every year since 2005. It also indicates that the Department has managed to meet those shortfalls from payroll savings on the Defence Forces, with the example of payroll savings arising from the gap between retirements and the recruitment of replacement personnel. Will the Minister of State comment on that and is it why we see a continued shortfall? Is it deliberate and why have we not reached the target?

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