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

I got the statistics I cited directly from the Defence Forces. Let us be clear on that. As it happens, I have my monthly recruitment and retention meeting with the general staff today. Every month now, I have a scheduled meeting on recruitment and retention with key leaders in the Defence Forces. We will keep having those meetings until we turn the tide on recruitment and retention challenges. There is pressure with regard to medical staff, just as there is with many other specialties in the Defence Forces and across the rest of the public sector. I listened earlier to a discussion on "Morning Ireland" about psychiatric nurses and so on. We have many pressures across the public sector. The Deputy might look at the recruitment campaign for An Garda Síochána this year. When a country is at full employment, skill sets are in demand across the private sector and people are being headhunted out of the Defence Forces and offered alternative careers, we face a challenge. The numbers I outlined are from the Defence Forces.

The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, UNDOF, is an issue I have asked about. I am informed that a medical officer was deployed to UNDOF on 12 November. The UNDOF medical section now comprises one medical officer, one paramedic and two combat medical technicians, which is full strength. It is important to put that on the record. I have heard all sorts of social media commentary and so on with regard to a lack of medical support on the UNDOF mission. That is the factual position. If there was delay in getting medical staff on to that mission, I will certainly look at why that happened. There have been challenges with the pace of recruitment and getting medicals done, particularly with the Reserve Defence Force recruitment campaign over the summer. That is a source of some frustration. We need to look at outsourcing some medicals as part of recruitment and induction campaigns. I thank the Deputies for their insight.

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