I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. It is interesting that as we change policies over the decades and so on, we realise that not all that happened in the past was wrong. There may have been issues with the policy, management issues, challenges in terms of maintenance and so on, but the bottom line was that it was all about the quality of life. We are endeavouring to recruit and retain people in the Defence Forces. The response to that crisis of both recruitment and retention has to be multifactorial. It has to be about the quality of life within the Defence Forces across the board. Obviously, the numbers are not of a significant scale in terms of what is there, but the idea of that being an additional factor that could help the quality of life and the retention agenda into the future is something that I am very mindful of.

There are 62 unoccupied married quarters in the Curragh at a time when we are in the midst of a housing crisis. We are spending a lot of money building new houses. I am in agreement. That is what I intend to do.

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