Concerns in Defence Forces ranks at withdrawal from Syrian peacekeeping mission

There is concern among some senior Defence Forces officers that the withdrawal of Irish troops from the UN peacekeeping mission in Syria will further impact recruitment and retention of personnel.

There are currently 130 Defence Forces peacekeepers in southwest Syria serving with the UN Disengagement Observer Force (Undof), which since 1973 has been responsible for maintaining a ceasefire between Israel and Syria.

Last week the Government informed the UN these troops will be withdrawn. The move is intended to free up resources to honour the Defence Forces’ commitment to the EU Battlegroup system and comes amid a chronic shortage of personnel in the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps.

The Defence Forces is to contribute over 170 troops to the 2,000-strong German-led Battlegroup which will start training next year and remain on standby through 2025 for deployment on humanitarian, peacekeeping and conflict stabilisation missions outside the EU.

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“Undof provided an avenue for guys to earn money and gain experience and challenge themselves. With that closed off, it’s going to make a military career that much less attractive,” one senior officer told The Irish Times.

“Lads would rely on an overseas posting to save some money for a [house] deposit, or if they were going to have a kid. Now the only real opportunity for that is the Leb,” another officer said, referring to the Defence Forces deployment to Unifil in southern Lebanon.

There is also concern the Battlegroup deployments will not offer the same opportunity to earn overseas allowances. While troops will train in Germany and will receive expenses, they are unlikely to receive the peacekeeping allowance paid to personnel in Syria or Lebanon.

Undof provided an avenue for guys to earn money and gain experience and challenge themselves

“There is a saying in [the Defence Forces] about battlegroups: ‘No mission, no money, no medal’,” said another military source.

They compared the decision to the withdrawal of Naval Service vessels from rescue missions in the Mediterranean which they said had a disastrous impact on crew retention.

However the dismay over withdrawal from Undof is not universal. Some enlisted troops, including noncommissioned officers, said there has been less enthusiasm for overseas service in recent years due to the workload on personnel caused by the staffing crisis.

“People are burnt out,” said one. This is reflected on the growing reliance by military authorities on the use of mandatory selection to man overseas deployments.

Mandatory selection involves ordering soldiers to go overseas in circumstances where there are not enough volunteers. Last month, at least five soldiers deploying overseas appealed their mandatory selection for the mission.

The Representative Association of Commissioned Officers (Raco) said the withdrawal is a policy decision guided by military advice.

“However, this withdrawal is an inevitable consequence of an inability to retain suitably qualified and experienced personnel, due to a lack of adequate retention policies,” General Secretary Lieutenant General Conor King said.

He said the Defence Forces “will continue to haemorrhage people” unless the EU working time directive is introduced and services conditions are improved.

The decision to withdraw from Undof has also drawn criticism from outside the military.

Roger Cole of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance said the decision to redeploy resources to the Battlegroups represents support of “EU militarisation, with their ever-expanding weapons industries, and their increasing warmongering strategy”.