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The Committee notes with regret that no report has been received from the Government for a third consecutive occasion. It hopes that a report will be supplied for examination by the Committee at its next session and that it will contain full information on the following matters:

Referring to its previous direct request concerning the application of sections 49(2) and 47(6) of the Defence Act, 1954, the Committee noted the information supplied by the Government in its report for the period 1 July 1984 to 30 June 1985. It noted that any refusal by the President to permit voluntary retirement of officers (if applied for) or to accept resignations of officers (if tendered) is made in exceptional circumstances only where the retirements or resignations would have a significant adverse effect on the operational capacity of the Defence Forces, that any such refusal does not in any way preclude the officers concerned from making a fresh application whenever they wish at a future date and that a fresh application has every possibility of being successful where the exceptional circumstances obtaining when the original application was refused no longer apply at the time of the fresh application. The Committee requests the Government to indicate in its future reports any changes which may occur in the provisions concerned or in the manner of their application.