Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Guím Lá Idirnáisiúnta na mBan sona ar an gCeannaire agus ar gach bean sa Teach agus sa tír. At the outset, I compliment the Leader. I listened to her speaking about women in politics on RTÉ a few days ago. She is a powerful leader for women and a powerful example for them to follow. I want to put that on record today.

It breaks my heart to come in here today and find myself again speaking about the Defence Forces. I read in The Irish Timesthis morning that the recommendations of the Chief of Staff on the return and recommissioning of officers was rejected by the Minister on the advice of the Department. The most senior military officer in the country made a recommendation only for it to be whipped away by some civilian. The Defence Forces are falling apart. Some 800 people sought to rejoin but only 62 were accepted. These 800 veterans came forward to stand up for the cause. If we have learned nothing else from Covid-19, we have learned that a properly resourced and staffed Defence Forces would have been there to provide the national surge capacity required over the past year. Over the last number of years, we have watched the destruction of the Defence Forces. There have been issues with the medical corps, the absence of technical pay and the closing of the Army apprenticeship school. This school was closed with six weeks' notice while the teachers were paid for the rest of the year. Civil instructors, when they were there, were paid. The Army Ranger Wing is falling apart. With regard to the Naval Service, we have deep-sea cables coming into the country but have nobody to watch them. There are also issues with the Air Corps and air traffic controllers.We did something for the pilots but did nothing for the air traffic controllers or the technicians.

All developed democracies nest their national emergency management contingent capabilities in their military. In times of non-emergencies, these mature democracies use their reserve national surge capacity for soft power projection internationally, chiefly in the medical engineering and logistic humanitarian response base. Ireland is losing out nationally and internationally in this space by not having an additional surge capacity. We have lost our Reserve Defence Force. I am running out of time so I will leave it at that. This is beyond funny. The Minister stated in The Suntoday that we need to recruit more than we are losing. One cannot recruit oneself out of a crisis.