An organisation representing soldiers claims that the Defence White Paper falls well short of what is required if the Defence Forces are to develop in a credible manner.
The Permanent Defence Force Other Ranks Representative Association (PDFORRA) has expressed concern that the White Paper is the beginning of a process which will dilute an agreement reached last week between the Chief of Staff, Lieut Gen David Stapleton, and the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith.
Some 10,000 soldiers are members of PDFORRA.
The association's general secretary, Mr John Lucey, said yesterday that the White Paper lacked clarity and represented a "poor start" to the implementation of the agreement between the two men.
In a statement, the organisation expressed "serious concern" that core issues agreed last week had not been included in the final draft of the document. "The Government's decision, which still requires clarification in regard to detail, falls well short of what we believe is required in the development of credible forces for the future," it said.
Mr Lucey said that the recent negotiations on the future of the Defence Forces had been most difficult for the parties involved. "Much of the confrontational behaviour could and should have been avoided. In order to ensure that the benefits of this White Paper and related agreements are maximised, it is now imperative that all of the parties enter into an atmosphere of partnership and trust," he said.
The "lack of clarity" in the White Paper and the failure to include the agreement reached between Mr Smith and Lieut Gen Stapleton was a poor start and would have to be resolved before progress could be made.
"It is surprising and disappointing that issues agreed last Wednesday could not have been included, and we are concerned that a process has now commenced whereby the substance and spirit of last week's agreement are being diluted", Mr Lucey concluded.
The association was also concerned that 14 non-pay issues raised by it in the negotiations on the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness had not been dealt with in the context of the White Paper.
The general secretary of the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers (RACO), Comdt Brian O'Keeffe, said that the White Paper was not the visionary document that it could and should have been.
The only reason the association felt it could "live with and work with" the proposals in the document was the agreement reached between the Chief-of-Staff and the Minister. However, the association's members were disturbed that the Minister had shown a lack of clarity in copperfastening the agreement. "He's left it hanging in the air and there's now huge uncertainty about the status of the agreement", Comdt O'Keeffe said.
He added that Mr Smith had displayed "a lack of understanding of the sensitivity of the issues involved".
