Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 163 and 164 together.

It is a fair point. It is a matter of lies, damned lies and statistics. It depends on when one measures the point. I am going to say progress has been made in the last year and the Deputy is going to say, "Actually, if you look back over a number of years", and both could be true. The reality is that there are some encouraging signs of a stabilisation now as regards recruitment and retention, but I am also very truthful on this in that there is a long way to go to get to where we need to be, so there is certainly no room for complacency at all. What is interesting, though, is that we are seeing through the application process very significant interest in joining the Defence Forces, and that is to be welcomed.

As of 9 April of this year, as I said earlier today, we have seen 7,545 whole-time equivalent personnel in the Defence Forces. That is 6,074 in our Army, 726 in our Air Corps and 745 in our Naval Service. We need to continue to build on this. I am pleased to say that we had 708 people inducted into the Permanent Defence Force last year. That was the highest number in over five years. The Defence Forces - I might them regularly on this; I spoke to the Chief of Staff on this recently - are hoping to induct 800 at least this year as well. That would be encouraging. In addition to that, we are seeing an encouraging trend gleaned from the discharges figure for last year. Last year, there was a discharges figure of 674. That was 81 fewer than the previous year and the lowest in four years. Therefore, last year saw the highest number inducted in over five years and the lowest number of discharges in over four years. We have to build on that. There are encouraging signs that this year will build on it, but let us keep the focus on that. I think some of this has happened because of some of the decisions we have taken and are taking and some of the work the Defence Forces have done. The points the Deputy's colleague Deputy O'Rourke just put to me are a part of it. Having that new joint induction training centre established in Gormanston was important. That will have really good facilities to train up to 900 recruits each year. As I said, the centre recently saw its largest recruit class to date, with 72 people go in the doors. We are putting the facilities in there, including gyms, multipurpose halls and purpose-built obstacle course. They are state-of-the-art training facilities. It is an example of our commitment to supporting people who join the Defence Forces. We now have the largest Defence Forces budget ever.

We have seen a very significant improvement in pay. The pay of recruits on completion of training now starts at €41,465 in year one. School leaver cadets upon commissioning earn €45,341 while in full-time education, and graduate cadets commence on €50,667, inclusive of military service allowance. It should be noted that interest in a career in the Defence Forces grew significantly in the last year. We had 13,384 applications, an increase of a third on the previous year. I am pleased to say this trend has continued this year with over 4,000 applications received by the end of March. We have increased the maximum recruitment age to 39. We have increased the mandatory retirement age to 62. We have extended private secondary healthcare to all Permanent Defence Force members. In addition, we have seen the patrol duty allowance payable to the Naval Service personnel at sea doubled, the Naval Service tax credit extended for a further five years and, very importantly, the provisions of the working time directive extended to the Defence Forces, subject to some exemptions but for the first time ever. There is a lot of work to do, but those are the plans for the time ahead and the progress we believe we have made to date.

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