Results 6,721-6,740 of 50,064 for speaker:Micheál Martin

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: I ask the committee to bear with me as I have a significant number of notes and may go back and forth between questions asked by different members. I agree with Deputy Berry. Deputy Cowen stated we should always appreciate the contribution of the Defence Forces overseas, particularly with UNIFIL and UNDOF, given the current situation. Deputy Berry made the fair point that without the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: That is a fair point. Much of this will be about getting this done as opposed to the cost of getting it done. It is about getting it done through the various procurement processes. Some requests are far more complex than one may think. People go through this in great detail on the military side to get the assessment right and so on. It is important we do that when such large sums of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: We got it dealt with.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: Suffice it to say that we need a system in terms of the implementation of this. I think this is agreed all around. This is what the reference in the speech relates to. I refer to getting this agreed once and for all in a transparent manner, which will then facilitate the implementation of the working time directive. This is important. The maintenance aspect comes back to personnel. I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: Yes. This is a positive thing, then, because I think it could be good for everybody.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: We need to work on the culture, along with all the other issues. We are not saying that other issues do not exist, but the culture is important. It is important to recognise that young people today have a different psychology than we would have had and that Senator Craughwell would have had in the 1970s. They look at the world differently, so we need cultural change. We cannot just say...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: I do not think we could have not commented on what was in the report. It would have been utterly unrealistic to suggest that we would have had one sentence and that would have been it. That would have not lasted a few minutes in this House or out in the public domain.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: We live in a democracy and people are going to comment. People have perspectives on the report, that I acknowledge. The fundamental recommendation, however, was to have an inquiry and that is what we are doing.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: A public inquiry can contest things, as we saw with the Charleton tribunal, and so on. I am very worried about the strength of the Naval Service. I do not think the Air Corps is at failing point. We should be careful of the language we use. Once we say that morale is very low, if I am working in the Defence Forces and all I hear emanating every day from Dáil Éireann and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: Through the chair, I am just making the point about using language. The Senator used a phrase like "the Army is falling apart". It is not falling apart. We have severe issues with recruitment and retention, but it is not falling apart. What I am trying to say is that there are two ways of looking at this situation. By the way, I have seen this occur in the health services for 20 years....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: The C295s and strategic airlift capacity, when it arrives, will be big changes to the Air Corps, compared to previous times. In fairness, I think Deputy Berry said this earlier. This is not to say that there are not still issues to be addressed. The biggest issue is recruitment and retention. We will bring in legislation to go up to the 35-year-old age group. Primary legislation is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: It is not.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: I observed it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: Yes, okay.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: It is our helicopter, by the way. It is a military helicopter. The point I am making is that it was a very successful operation. The Senator has queried and raised the bar a bit in terms of loss of life and all that. A very careful assessment was made of the situation by people in authority in the military.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: Let us trust them then.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: They would not-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: It is the growth threat. The Ukrainian war has revealed an enormous growth in cyberattacks.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: Collaboration is the key and that goes back to the consultative forum. On those two areas of maritime, we saw with Estonia and Finland that the gas pipeline was sabotaged just last week, as was the cable. It means the private sector, governments and militaries need to co-operate and collaborate and we need to get their information as to their cables. It will need a lot of multidisciplinary...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: Deputy Stanton had specific questions. I gave him the examples of the two inshore patrol vessels. The duty allowance is not specifically a budgetary issue in the sense we can deal with it as we are, and there have been negotiations. I was anxious to retain the tax credit in this year's budget. Regarding the patrol duty allowance, I spoke to people where the tax credit was meant to be the...