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

I do not believe that there is a lack of clarity here but this is something which must continue to evolve. For me, growing and expanding the Air Corps is a very big part of what we will be doing over the next decade in the Defence Forces. For the obvious reasons that the Deputy has outlined, we have ten times as much sea surface as we have land surface. If one takes our sovereign territory at sea as well as land, I believe we are the fourth or fifth largest country physically in the European Union. In order to have competent and comprehensive surveillance of that sovereign territory, we need an Air Corps that is continuously resourced to do that, as indeed we need our Naval Service, as well as expanding our Army and cyber domains, and so on. The advantage of having the commission report is that we now have the resources to deliver that expansion on the scale that, I believe, many people were not expecting. I can assure the Deputy that the Air Corps will be a big part of that growth story. It is up to the Defence Forces, working with the Department of Defence, to map that out and there will be no lack of ambition from the Government in how we respond to those asks.

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