I move amendment No. 23 :—
After paragraph (a) to add a new paragraph as follows :—
" (b) officers of the Permanent Defence Forces who have retired therefrom on pension and are under the age of 65 years."
The Chairman and a number of Deputies and myself have advocated in the past few years that officers of the permanent force who retire on pension after long service and who have considerable experience are very valuable persons and that their services should not be lost entirely to the State when they leave on pension. The object of the amendment is to enable such officers until they reach 65 to be eligible for service. That does not necessarily mean that they would be called out annually or even periodically but that the valuable experience they had gained over perhaps 30 years or more would be available if the State needed it. By this provision their services would be available until they reached 65.
Everyone will agree that a lot of the success during the last emergency was due to the experienced officers who were on the old reserve and who came back into the service and whose valuable experience was generously given. I would recommend to the Minister to accept the amendment.