Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I largely agree with Deputy Ó Laoghaire. I welcome and acknowledge the fact that there is, broadly, cross-party support and support across the House for increased spending on defence and security. We will have different views and perspectives, perhaps, on where to prioritise that level of spending. However, we all recognise as a militarily unaligned neutral country that we still have to take our own defence and security capability seriously, particularly when it comes to supporting key infrastructures and having a better understanding of what happens above in our skies and below in our waters. To do all of that, we could have all of the shiny equipment we want but we need to have the men and women of Óglaigh na hÉireann to carry out those tasks and keep our country safe. That is why investing in its training facilities is really important.

In fairness to the Defence Forces and the Department of Defence, I think the work they have undertaken in terms of developing a series of master plans for each installation to future proof them for 20 to 30 years is a sensible way of doing it. It will identify from the outset the infrastructural requirements in line with capability developments for each installation but will also then allow a pipeline of projects to get each of those facilities to where we wish them to be.

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