Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Government is committed to maintaining the stabilised strength of the Permanent Defence Force at 9,500 personnel, comprising of 7,520 Army, 886 Air Corps and 1,094 Naval Service and the establishment strength of the Reserve Defence Force at 4,069, comprising of 3,869 Army Reservists and 200 Naval Service Reservists. The current strength of the Army, Navy and Air Corps as of 30 November 2014 (the latest date for which figures are available) together with the corresponding figures for the Army and Naval Reserve are set out in the tables.

Table 1. Permanent Defence Force

Strength (30 November 2014)

-	No.
Army	7,480
Navy	1,061
Air Corps	764
Total	9,305

Table 2. Reserve Defence Force

Strength (30 November 2014)

-	No.
Army Reserve	2,181
Naval Reserve	144
Total	2,325

Recruitment of personnel to the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps is determined in line with the operational requirements of each of the three services and takes account of vacancies created by retirements.

Targeted recruitment has been taking place so as to maintain the level of 9,500 personnel and to ensure the ongoing deployable capacity of the Defence Forces on operations. To this end, a General Service Recruitment competition took place in 2014. Recruitment from the panels established under this competition commenced on 18 August, 2014. Of the 443 Recruits enlisted to the Permanent Defence Force (both Army and Navy) since then, 380 remain in training. There are 37 cadets in training and 15 Apprentice Aircraft Technicians have been recruited to the Air Corps. Targeted General Service recruitment will continue this year from the recruitment panels formed from the 2014 competition. It is planned that these panels will remain in place until they are exhausted later this year.

With the support of the Chief of Staff and within the resources available, I intend to retain the capacity of the Defence Forces to operate effectively across all roles and to undertake the tasks laid down by Government both at home and overseas.