Ireland

The population of the Republic of Ireland (hereinafter 'Ireland') is 4.7 million with a per capita GDP of €49,300 (Eurostat 2016a). Ireland's debt to GDP ratio in 2015 was 93.8 (Eurostat 2016b). Total defence expenditure in 2016 was €904 million, or 0.48 per cent of GDP, the lowest ratio in the European Union. This represents a defence expenditure of €193 per person (Department of Defence 2016). The full-time strength of the Permanent Defence Forces (PDF) in 2016 amounts to 9,137 with a further 2,332 in the Reserve Defence Forces (Dail Eireann 2016a), with plans to bring this up to a steady-state 9,500. Approximately 10 per cent of the PDF is deployable overseas with an average annual overseas deployment (UN or EU) of 419 personnel or 4.5 per cent of total PDF (Dail Eireann 2016b).