Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister of State knows, the quality of personnel serving in our Permanent Defence Forces is a great asset for our country. We see that in the work of members at home and abroad, often in difficult and dangerous circumstances. The decline in the serving numbers has to be a source of concern to all of us and we need to get the numbers back up in excess of 10,000. I understand that there were about 9,000 serving members towards the end of December. The Minister of State knows that is not a sufficient number to enable our Army, Air Corps and Naval Service to carry out their mandated duties and there is an urgent need to have the numbers enlisted increase.

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