Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The 2015 White Paper on Defence commits to maintaining the strength of the Permanent Defence Force at 9,500 personnel, comprising 7,520 Army, 886 Air Corps and 1,094 Naval Service personnel. The whole-time equivalent strength of the Permanent Defence Force on 28 Feb 2017 stands at 9,070 with 7,293, 701 and 1,076 personnel in the Army, Air Corps and Naval Service, respectively.

The Defence Forces have a policy of ongoing recruitment with the objective of returning to and maintaining its stated establishment figure of 9,500 personnel. In total, 590 general service recruits - 501 Army and 89 Naval Service - were inducted in 2016, along with 100 cadets between all services. Both the cadet and general service recruitment campaigns are presently active. The cadet campaign covers requirement for line and specialist officers including engineers for the Army and Naval Service and pilots for the Air Corps. The Defence Forces are planning for the induction of 850 to 900 new entrants in 2017.

With regard to the officer staffing levels of individual units, I am informed by the military authorities that this is a very difficult figure to quantify, as the strength in barracks can vary from day to day given the operational requirements of units within the barracks and other training and support commitments. Such commitments can result in Permanent Defence Force personnel normally garrisoned in a barracks not being present. The record will show a table which gives an overall synopsis of the strength against establishment figures for officers as of the end of January 2017. As is evidenced by these figures, officer ranks are operating at more than 90% of the established strength.

With the support of the Chief of Staff and within the resources available, it is intended to retain the capacity of the Defence Forces to operate effectively across all roles and to undertake both the home and overseas tasks laid down by Government.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

	Lt Gen	Maj Gen	Brig Gen	Col	Lt Col	Comdt	Capt	Lt	TOTAL
ARMY Establishment Figure	1	2	6	34	110	257	306	167	883
ARMY STRENGTH*	1	2	6	31	103	255	261	165	815
Officer Strength as % of Establishment Figure	100%	100%	100%	91.8%	93.64%	99.22%	85.29%	98.80%	92.30%

* All strengths are given as whole-time equivalents.

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