Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. The White Paper on Defence sets out the Government's decision to put in place a fixed cycle of defence reviews. These are common internationally and give assurance that policy remains up to date and relevant to changing future circumstances. The White Paper provides that these reviews are to have a three-yearly cycle, with every second review being more comprehensive in nature and styled a strategic defence review. The White Paper specified that the first in this new cycle of reviews would be a White Paper update.

A joint civil-military working group formally commenced work on the White Paper update in July 2018, as laid down in the White Paper, and work on the update is now complete. The completion of the update was led by me, while the process was managed by a high-level joint civil-military steering group. Beneath this, a working group comprising civil and military representatives has worked in support of the steering group.

The process undertaken to carry out this update looked at three broad strands. The first of these strands was a security environment assessment. An interdepartmental and inter-agency defence and security environment assessment group was established to review and update the security environment assessment. The work of this group was led by the Department of Defence and also comprised representatives of the Departments of the Taoiseach; Justice and Equality; Foreign Affairs and Trade; and Communications, Climate Action and Environment; as well as the Defence Forces and An Garda Síochána. This was done in order to situate appropriately the defence policy response in terms of the lead or supporting roles that defence plays.

The second strand dealt with progress on White Paper implementation. Since publication of the White Paper, a total of 95 separate projects have been identified for completion over a ten-year period. The White Paper update includes a review of overall progress on all 95 White Paper implementation projects broken down by their chapter in the White Paper and categorised based on their life cycle, from "not initiated" through to "closed".

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

The third strand concerned consultation with the Oireachtas. The Government’s view has been that defence matters should ideally attract all-party support and there is an acknowledgement in the White Paper of the strong tradition within the Chambers of the Oireachtas of support for national interest defence issues. In this spirit, I met with members of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence, on 5 March 2019 in regard to both the White Paper update and the process of establishing the fixed cycle of defence reviews. Following my consideration, the White Paper update will be placed before Cabinet and subsequently published on my Department's website.

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