Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 90: To ask the Minister for Defence the number of meetings he and his Department have had with the Representative Association for Commissioned Officers and the Permanent Defence Forces Other Ranks Representative Association in the past 12 months. [15612/10]

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Since my appointment as Minister for Defence I have had one meeting with PDFORRA and have also met RACO on one occasion. In the past twelve months my predecessor met with each of the Associations once and addressed both their Annual Delegate Conferences.

The Conciliation and Arbitration Scheme provides the mechanism for addressing issues, which come within the Association's remit. This scheme provides a range of fora for engagement with the Associations, from Council and subcommittee meetings to less formal meeting and contacts.

The number of meetings held with each association under the scheme depends on the particular issues on hands, the complexity of those issues and how the associations choose to deal with them, either formally or informally. In the past 12 months officials from the Department of Defence have met with PDFORRA formally on 12 occasions and RACO formally on 22 occasions. In addition, there has been many informal meetings with both Associations, in particular PDFORRA.

Question No. 91 answered with Question No. 58.