Gerard Craughwell (Independent)

This morning at a meeting of the defence committee we heard how Defence Forces personnel take their instructions from the Department and from the Minister when it comes to policy issues. Last week, we had a meeting about the shortage of air traffic controllers and we were assured everything was in hand. I learned over the weekend that the offer of the bounty if you want to remain in service was not made until late on Friday and it had a requirement that those serving had to be at least eight years in the job and had to be at the rank of sergeant. The five people who are leaving do not qualify. So in actual fact, the measures being put in place by the Cabinet have not encouraged anybody who is serving to actually stay. I am not sure who is putting the policy in place and putting the money in people's pockets, but it strikes me that the Government has done what it has had to do and the failure is in whatever way that has been translated to the people in uniform. It is bad enough that the Secretary General knew about these problems as far back as 2017, again in 2019, twice in 2021, and once herself drawing to the crisis that was coming down the line, yet they sat on their hands and did absolutely nothing about it. In 2023, in one of the reports, again they point out the likelihood the impact of air traffic control and other specialisms within the Defence Forces were going to have.

It strikes me that the policy that is being followed by the Department is to privatise as much as possible. We have lost the search and rescue service to a private provider. We have lost the transfer of transplant patients and other patients who require urgent transfer to the UK. We have lost all that to private companies. Are they determined to drive the organisation into the ground to make it much easier to deal with? It reminds me of the episode of "Yes Minister" and how the hospital ran perfectly because there were no patients in it. Is that what they want - the Defence Forces to run great because there are no serving members? We really need to do something about it. We need the Minister in here for a debate, if the Leader can organise that at some stage.