Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is hard to ask a supplementary question when I do not have the substantive response to the question I asked. I take the Tánaiste's commitment to provide the precise figures. Here is what we do know from the Tánaiste's response. There are currently fewer than 7,500 members of our Defence Forces, 2,000 below the establishment figure and a whopping 4,000 below the two-figure level cited as necessary by the Commission on the Defence Forces. I welcome the increase in the mandatory retirement age but that is not the problem when it comes to retention. The problem is that members who are not anywhere close to retirement age in some instances, and who are necessary within our Defence Forces, are choosing to leave. There have been 443 of those this year. Some 10,000 people applied or expressed an interest in joining the Defence Forces this year but only 434 were actually inducted.

Does the Tánaiste not see that is a really big problem and that the Government has failed, under any metric, to get a handle on the recruitment and retention crisis over the past five years?

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