Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)

On that, and it partially relates to my first question, it is important after the budget that the Department would publish a document outlining where we now stand with the revised capital development plan and to mark that against the report of the Commission on the Defence Forces. That would be a useful document if it were possible to achieve. One of the areas in which the gap between the current reality and the ambition is most stark is in our naval capacity. The Naval Service is still in a very under-resourced state. The manner in which it has conducted itself as regards some of the issues that have arisen has been exemplary but we still have the embarrassing situation where boats have been put to sea without a functioning main gun. That is primarily due to lack of personnel and expertise. One of the issues I have raised in the past - the Minister has talked about service level commitment schemes for certain ranks - relates to one of the roles that are most difficult to obtain and retain for the Defence Forces, namely, artificers. They are hugely in demand in the private sector. That needs to be looked at in the scheme.

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