Gerard Craughwell (Independent)

I hear lots of talk about the current situation in the Air Corps in particular, but also in the wider Defence Forces. The Taoiseach recently said the crisis in the Air Corps was a matter for military management. I want to put on the record of this House that military management has no funding of its own. It is at the total behest of the Department of Defence.

We find ourselves in a situation where the Tánaiste had to bring to Cabinet today a special memo for the introduction of a bonus scheme to retain air traffic controllers in the Air Corps. The last time a bonus scheme was brought in to retain pilots, as far as I recall, it took a year after the decision was made before the money hit the pockets of the people in question. How did we finish up having a situation where, two weeks ago, the Taoiseach said it was the problem of military management and, today we have a memo going before the Cabinet to solve the problem that everybody has known about since 2021?

In addition, the Ward report was recently published. After the Crotty case in Limerick, every senior politician in this country jumped up to condemn the Defence Forces. They would not let their daughters serve in the Defence Forces under any circumstances. Peter Ward found there were people like Crotty in the Defence Forces but it was not an epidemic, as it was portrayed. I wonder how many of those who condemned the Defence Forces will stand up now in Parliament and apologise to the decent, honest and hard-working people in places like Dún Uí Mhaoilíosa in Galway, which the Leader and I well know, or in Cork, Limerick, Dundalk, Kilkenny and Dublin. Will they stand up and admit we have fine men and women serving our country day and night? Will they say those men and women are available any time this country finds itself in crisis? Will they also say that poor political and administrative management has run that Defence Force into the ground? Will they do that? Perhaps we could have an honest debate in this Chamber where we would look at these things.

The triple lock is currently being discussed by the committee. I wonder if the Americans will go through with their threat to withdraw support for UNIFIL. Are we aware of the fact that 26% of funding for peacekeeping in the world is paid by the United States? Where will our troops go if President Trump decides to pull that funding? Where will the funding go? What about the triple lock? It is the red herring that is blinding us to the real problems in the Defence Forces. We need a debate on this.