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Royal Irish Regiment (Home Service)

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new role as the Liberal Democrat defence spokesperson, and no doubt we will cross swords over some of the issues to which he referred tangentially in his remarks. I appreciate that this is the first day in the job for the hon. Gentleman and I assure him that my statement was not deliberately timed to coincide with that. However, given what he said about the way that we use the Army elsewhere, I think that he may have misunderstood the role of the Home Service. It is able to perform its duties only in Northern Ireland. It was established for that purpose, which has of course come to an end as we make progress towards normalisation. Many of the people in the Home Service have grown up in a military environment, and have a good understanding of what is required. They are well trained, and many of the skills that they have could be used. They would, of course, need to be retrained to become fully functioning members of the regular Army, but we are offering the £10,000 inducement because we want them to join. We recognise that those in full-time service face a particular problem, and a sizeable number of them may want to take this career opportunity. However, we will define more closely the eventual long-term Army strength in Northern Ireland, and at present expect it to be in the region of 5,000 personnel. That would mean that those who transfer to the regular Army could still have their homes close to the regimental base, even though they would also serve on deployment like any other soldiers. The package is based on the normalisation process. The hon. Gentleman may wish to make an early visit to Northern Ireland and avail himself of the briefings about what is going on over there. I am sure that he would benefit greatly from doing so, and we will facilitate that as best we can.