I wish all present, and the entire parliamentary community, a happy Christmas.

I wish to raise with the Taoiseach the situation in Ukraine because I know it will feature at the European Council meeting he will attend tomorrow. It is a very serious situation. There are more than 100,000 Russian troops on the border, backed up by armour, artillery and aircraft. As every day passes, it looks less like posturing and more like genuine preparation for an assault on Ukraine. I mention that because the HSE, to be fair, was ill prepared for the pandemic because that is the nature of pandemics. Also, our cyberdefence people were ill-prepared for the cyberattack because that is the nature of cyberattacks. One thing that is for sure is that the Defence Forces are hopelessly ill-prepared for any outbreak of hostilities on the Continent and any overspill that may arrive on our shores. Whenever I am in Europe, my counterparts there always tell me that all they are asking Ireland to do is to be able to police its own skies, patrol its own waters and not be a burden on its neighbours in the context of defence and security. That is an entirely reasonable request of a supposedly sovereign independent republic. On that basis, I was very happy to see the commitment in the programme for Government last year to establish a commission on the Defence Forces. That commission, to be fair, was established at the start of this year and is due to report approximately 17 days from now.

I am very much in favour of the principle and I support the concept. Last week, however, there were some concerning reports in the media, particularly relating to the independence or perceived lack of independence in the commission's process, whether the report will be ready on time and whether there will be enough resources on the table to implement its findings. I am particularly concerned about the independence or otherwise of the commission's findings. It would be a very retrograde step if the secretariat appointed to the commission did most of the writing and drafting of the report, with the commission only really there to rubber stamp any recommendations.

Will the Taoiseach provide any reassurance to the House that the Commission on the Defence Forces is autonomous, is independent, has editorial autonomy and is free from any bureaucratic interference? If the commission requires more time beyond 31 December to furnish its report, would the Taoiseach be supportive of such a request? If it needs an extension in order to submit the report, what would be the Taoiseach's views on such a request?

I thank the Deputy for raising a very important matter. On the question of Ukraine, there is a range of EU meetings tomorrow and Thursday, including an EU Council meeting. Ukraine and the position pertaining to Russia will be raised. We have already had preliminary discussions and preparatory meetings late last week in respect of that matter. It is entirely unacceptable that this type of pressure is being put on Ukraine by the massing of so many Russian military personnel on Ukraine's borders. The European Union is making it very clear that this is unacceptable and there will be consequences - certainly economic consequences - as a result of any infringement or violation of Ukraine's sovereignty. The matter is being taken very seriously in Europe and we know it is being taken very seriously in the United States. It is a global matter and the more major players are engaging with Russia on this to avoid any conflict. It is critical that we avoid such conflict.

In the context of our Defence Forces, there is a Commission on the Defence Forces, as the Deputy said. It was established and is independent. It is to examine structures for governance, joint command and control, the arrangements for the effective defence of the country, the composition of the Defence Forces and its pay structures. A separate organisational capability review of the Department of Defence is currently under way.

The commission is independent and is mandated to make recommendations as it sees fit within its terms of reference. The commission's report, when submitted, will be fully considered. I have looked at the list of the people on the commission again to refresh my memory and they do not sound like people who would stand for any rubber stamping by any secretariat of any report. There are strong personalities on that commission. There are people on it with experience in the military world, the public service, the Civil Service and the industrial relations world. These are people generally with solid experience in life so the scenario does not arise where somebody will write a report and they will rubber-stamp it. That will not happen at all.

It is a real opportunity to look radically at the entire matter. We need to change and improve in respect of our capabilities. There is a range of matters, including specialists that need to be recruited to the Defence Forces across the board. The Deputy instanced cybersecurity as an example and even across Europe we need a Europe-wide response. The most important defence against cyberthreats is a collective defence, where we can pool our knowledge and experience of cyberattacks and dealing with them, as happened in our case. Poland came to help us, as did the United Kingdom and others.

I thank the Taoiseach for the very helpful response. On the implementation of the recommendations, we have a very poor track record in this country of implementing defence policy once it is decided. There was a White Paper from 2015, for example. Dozens of projects from six years ago have yet even to be commenced, let alone completed.

Can the Taoiseach guarantee or assure us that the resources and the political will required to implement the findings of this report, if it is finalised, will be forthcoming when required to make our armed forces an armed forces for the 21st century?

I have discussed this with the Minister for Defence. We want a strong and accelerated follow-through on the recommendations of the commission. It cannot be a report that is just left on the shelf. It has to be activated, followed through on and implemented. Obviously, we will have to see the nature of the recommendations and make an assessment of them, but it is critical to the country. We have seen since the beginning of the pandemic that the Defence Forces have been outstanding in a range of areas to do with the pandemic and in different ways. In the beginning, they helped out in nursing homes. They have helped out with the logistics of distribution and in testing and tracing. The Defence Forces have been a significant underpinning of the national effort in respect of the pandemic. Even to this day, there are further discussions between the HSE and the Chief of Staff in respect of additional help and work the Defence Forces can bring to the table to respond to the Omicron situation.

We are very conscious of that. I hope the commission represents the dawn of a new era for our Defence Forces.