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

We are not yet where we need to be as regards planning, but we are working on that. The Chief of Staff, the Secretary General and I had a long trilateral meeting at the PDFORRA conference yesterday during which we talked predominantly about recruitment and retention, and what needs to be done in the short and medium term to turn around numbers that have been moving in the wrong direction for far too long. It is not easy to do that. For what is worth, I will put on the record that trying to attract people into the Defence Forces is a challenge that virtually every country in the developed world has. That is especially the case for countries that have full employment, as we have, where there are private sector incentives to try to encourage skilled people and specialists, in particular, out of the Defence Forces into different jobs and so on.

This is not an easy challenge but we will put in a lot of financial resources and bring in outside expertise. By the end of this year, we will have a new head of transformation and a new head of HR in the Defence Forces, both civilians, in addition to a new head of gender. They will be senior people reporting directly to the Chief of Staff, bringing outside expertise and knowledge, and working with the Chief of Staff and his team on the general staff, to try to bring about the kind of radical change that is needed to turn these figures around. Of course, the Department is very much part of that conversation, as I hope are the representative bodies, which recognise that we all need to pull in the same direction to make this happen. I am satisfied that we can achieve this but it will take a significant effort and will cost us a lot of money, which the Government has committed to.

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