Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to follow on from what both Senators Robbie Gallagher and Paul Daly said. I ask the Deputy Leader to invite the Minister of State at the Department of Defence to come to the House to have a discussion on the future of the Defence Forces. Yesterday Senator Gerard P. Craughwell outlined some very alarming statistics on the Order of Business. I would specifically like to ask the Minister of State, in the light of and given the unknowns associated with Brexit, what plans he has for the Defence Forces and the security of the Border. A number of years ago the most modern army barracks in Europe, Dún Uí Néill in Cavan town, were closed. I have raised this issue continuously in the House. We were told the barracks had been closed strategically to improve the quality of the Defence Forces.Almost the entire Border is being left without any Army personnel other than skeleton crews based in County Louth and in County Donegal because the personnel who are allegedly based in both of those barracks are not based in those barracks. They are operating, some of them in this city and some of them in the Government Chief Whip's town of Athlone. It is time we got real here. Our Border is not being secured-----