Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not know if the Deputy has had a chance to read the report but the recommendation is that we would increase our level of ambition around defence and defence resourcing. Specifically it asks us to improve troop protection for more demanding roles overseas. Does the Deputy disagree with that? It asks us to enhance situational awareness with primary radar capacity; significantly strengthen military intelligence and cyberdefence capabilities; to increase naval presence by essentially double crewing so that we can have ships at sea more often to do the work that it has been asked to do; or to enhance mobile and lift capacity in terms of long-range lift capacity should we have to get our people or troops out of parts of the world quickly because they are in danger. Does the Deputy disagree with any of that?

This is the practical reality of capacity improvements that the commission is asking us to consider and spend money on so that our troops are better equipped, better armed, better protected and have better training facilities and are increased in number so that they can do the job that we ask them to do.

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