Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 7 March 2024
174. Deputy Patrick Costello asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence to comment on the medical resources currently assigned to the Reserve Defence Force and the issues highlighted in the past with a lack of resourcing resulting in slow progression of applications; what measure he will take to ensure efficient progression of applications; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11339/24]
View answerThe Government remains fully committed to the advancement of the Reserve Defence Force (RDF). A RDF recruitment competition was relaunched in October 2023, where, to date, there are over 800 live applications resulting from this campaign.
There has been ongoing and recent progress on the medical phase of the induction process with work completed on streamlining the two-stage medical process and fitness testing is now completed before medicals.
There is a contract in place to outsource the Part 2 medicals over a four-year period for both the PDF and the RDF, amounting to some 10,000 medicals in total and it is planned to include 600 RDF induction medicals per year as part of this overall target over the 4 year period.
The military authorities have also advised that they are currently undertaking a number of other actions which include the consideration of on-boarding of recruits following the provision of a “Certificate for Service with the RDF” signed by their civilian General Practitioner. This will allow recruits to come through the doors, maintaining a connection with the Defence Forces, while awaiting a full Defence Forces medical to commence formal recruit training.
I am also assured that additional medical resources are being assigned to ensure the completion of a further 100 reserve induction medicals in March and April 2024, with the intention to ensure that 200 recruits are inducted no later than Quarter 3 of 2024.
I would like to assure the Deputy that it is my aim, and that of the Chief of Staff, to ensure that the regeneration of the RDF remains a key goal in 2024 and beyond.
