Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State said that military authorities have advised there is no difficulty but Vice Admiral Mellett said, "There are gaps." He also said:

You are always going to have a churn and a churn is healthy, but I would rather it be down about 5% rather than the 8.1% it is at present. It is that extra per cent that is crippling us at present.

I know from speaking to people who have been deployed overseas that there has been a process of a de facto mandatory selection, where personnel have been bounced and semi-threatened into overseas deployment. Some of those people might have familial or personal circumstances which do not suit deployment overseas but attempts have been made to put guns to these people's heads, without necessarily pulling the trigger, and bouncing them into overseas deployment.

A survey of the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers, RACO, shows that domestic and personal commitments are one of the reasons people are leaving the Defence Forces. I welcome deployment overseas but we need to look at the serious nature of what is happening within the Defence Forces. Morale is worsening and people are being bounced into situations. That is confirmed by what Vice Admiral Mellett has had to say. Furthermore, it is concerning that implicit threats have been made to members of the Defence Forces.

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