Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

We are discussing placing a number of Defence Forces personnel on standby at Dublin Airport. What the general public does not realise – the Deputy Leader does because she has been at the coalface – is that putting people on standby means that they are not going on leave and must instead be available. In the middle of the holiday season, soldiers and their families go on holidays too. In order to meet the commitment at Dublin Airport, we will be drawing troops from Cork, Limerick, Galway, Kilkenny, Dundalk and possibly Donegal. They will need to be accommodated in the very barracks that the Minister for Transport wants to sell off and use for social housing.

I want to see the report of the Commission on the Defence Forces being progressed. A tiny number of its recommendations dealt with pay. Those could have been implemented with the stroke of a pen the moment the report was published, but they have not been. We have lost more than 200 people since then. I understand that we are about to lose another 40 from the Naval Service. If that happens, we will be in dire straits. We have to look after Europe's largest exclusive economic zone in the Atlantic Ocean, but we are now down to possibly three ships. It is a joke and it needs to stop. I am sorry if people do not like me referring to the part-time Minister, but we are the only country in the EU without a dedicated minister for defence. That is shameful.