Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this very important issue. It is fair to say that since he was elected, he has been a very strong advocate for the Defence Forces. He has been advocating on its behalf to many Members in this House, including Members of Government. His advocacy has been consistent and genuine, obviously, given his own experience. I did not realise the vicarious influence, if I may say, of just being here looking after us many years ago had and the clear impact in ending up as a Member of the House through spending that time in the Gallery. The Deputy must have been attracted to what was going on to make him want to become a participant.

Today at the Cabinet meeting, the Minister for Defence, Deputy Coveney, brought forward a memorandum. We met with the commission on a number of occasions. I have met with the commission and the commission chair. It is a high level action plan. It will entail multi-annual funding increases, commencing in 2023, to reach a defence budget of €1.5 billion by 2028. It will involve - the Deputy was correct when he said this is key metric - increasing the number of personnel, which will be an enormous challenge, by nearly 2,000 over the current establishment figure of 9,500.

The other key aspect of this is that there is an urgent need for human resources change and a cultural transformation of our Defence Forces. When I spoke to the chairperson, he was adamant about that. There are many practices that need dramatic transformation. It will take time. That is as important a part of the commission's recommendations as the ambition to go to a higher level of provision and defence capability. The report says we should go to level 2, as outlined in the report. I do not think we have any choice but to do that in terms of the level of ambition. It is a realistic level of ambition that we can get to. When we get to that level of ambition, we can review. We need radar systems and we need to have a greater understanding of the risks and so on, given our maritime size, and also in terms of how that relates to our naval strength and what is going on in the air around Ireland and so on. These are all issues on which we need to be stronger in terms of capability, intelligence and understanding.

In terms of the pay structures, there is a recommendation to provide immediate access to the seagoing service commitment scheme to direct-entry personnel in the Naval Service. We will follow through on the removal of the requirement for a private, three-star, or able seaman to mark time for the first three years at that rank. The payment of the full rate of military service allowance applicable to the rank of all private, three star, or able seamen personnel, replacement of the existing seagoing allowances with less complex seagoing duty measures and introduction of long-service increments to the pay scales of all ranks are all recommendations that have been made on the personnel front. It is something we are going to pursue. The Government will be keeping a hands-on approach through the Department and I, as Taoiseach, will be following through in terms of implementation with the Minister for Defence, Deputy Coveney.

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