The Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, is expected to complete the sale of former military barracks within weeks, writes Jim Cusack, Security Editor
In the coming weeks the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, is expected to sign contracts in the sale of the former Army barracks at Ballincollig in Cork and Clancy Barracks in Dublin.
Proceeds from the sale of the two properties could raise €75 million, funds that will help pay for the three to five helicopters under order from the US manufacturer Sikorsky.
Mr Smith yesterday said he was attempting to expedite the completion of the contract with Sikorsky which has come under legal challenge from another European bidder for the contract. Mr Smith said he hoped that "diplomatic" efforts could settle the dispute and allow the Air Corps to go ahead with arrangements to secure its new helicopters.
Mr Smith hoped the Defence Forces' major re-equipment programme would be in place to ensure it could play a significant role in peacekeeping missions under the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF).
Despite the views against Irish military participation in a European force, expressed in the No vote in the Nice referendum, Mr Smith noted Irish troops were already serving with other European forces on peacekeeping duties in the Balkans. He said the "international community" needed to play a more active role in preventing regional conflicts involving atrocities and genocide, rather than arriving afterwards.
"We are already out there in Sarajevo and Kosovo, playing our part in humanitarian tasks, helping to restore normality, helping to initiate the restoration of democratic systems, judicial systems and local government systems.
"We also have a vested interest in building-up these economies because our trade is growing in that part of the world.
"Obviously we have a barrier to overcome in view of the fact that the people voted No to Nice.
"One of the problems we have to face up to as an international community under the domain of the United Nations is that we are actually coming in after the genocides, after the atrocities, dealing with the scars and trauma.
"The international community has to ask itself questions about whether by working more together in co-operation and linking our strengths together are we able to intervene at an earlier stage so that these atrocities can be avoided."
He said in Sarajevo there was a long siege; 10,000 people were killed, 1,800 of them children. What was once a people's park is now a graveyard.
"People have to imagine the scars and trauma that leaves in a community, the youth that has been destroyed. While the United Nations does great work and we are one of the most consistent contributors to it over 40 years, we still have to say to ourselves: why are we going after everything has happened?
"We have to try and see if we can make an earlier intervention: can we anticipate things. Can we sort out and try to get people around the table, learning from our own experience with the Northern peace process.
"There is no question of a European army. There is no question of any threat to our military neutrality," he added.
The Minister said in his new term of office he intended overseeing the final stages of military restructuring which would include preparations for providing a battalion-sized contingent to serve on humanitarian and peacekeeping missions in the new European force.
The military reorganisation involves overseeing the introduction of a new career path and recruitment organisation in the Defence Forces, involving consultation with the military representative associations and General Staff.
He said the restructuring programme began over five years ago, under which the Defence Forces was reduced in size from about 13,000 to 10,500, was complete but he expected proposals from the military management on final structures for the smaller force.
The implementation of a consultant's report on sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination in the Defence Forces was under way, he added. He would ensure there would be "no place" for bullying or harassment. "I accepted the report and I am going to oversee the implementation of its recommendations."
He pointed out that along with military restructuring and reduction, the last Government's Defence White Paper provided for a 10 per cent reduction in the Civil Service staff in the Department of Defence. This had been held up because of the additional resources needed to handle the "huge" problem concerning hearing injury compensation claims.
Mr Smith said there had been a considerable success in reducing the average quantum amounts being awarded for hearing damage. This was reduced from about €50,000 to around €10,000. At one stage it was projected that the compensation could be so large as to have an impact on economic growth.
Mr Smith estimated that considerable savings were made as a result of prolonged legal challenges and negotiations
"It's about £1 billion (€1.27 billion) we have cut off. The original estimate was that it would be about £1.25 billion (€1.59 billion) and it should end up about £300 million (€380 million). We had to get it down. It was a question of something careering out of control."
Mr Smith said that if the hearing compensation claims had not been brought under control, he would have been unable to convince the Department of Finance to allow him to keep the savings from early redundancy and sale of barracks for re-equipping the Defence Forces.
The new Programme for Government continued the provision that money raised from the sale of redundant barracks and from voluntary redundancy would be retained by his Department for military equipment and infrastructure investment.
He said the Army had already received its fleet of new armoured personnel carriers and the Naval Service had received two new ships.
It was now his intention to ensure that the contract to supply the Air Corps with new medium-lift and search and rescue helicopters was expedited.
Mr Smith rejected media suggestions that he was a last-minute choice for inclusion in the Cabinet. He pointed out that he had served six times as a Minister and four times as a junior minister.
He had already met senior military and Department staff to outline his programme of work with the incoming Government.
"I called a meeting last Friday and I said to the senior staff: 'Forget that I was ever here, we are starting again. We have a fresh mandate and it is important to energize under the new mandate because I don't want to have any complacency because it is the same Minister coming back. Everything that was done in the last five years is done. That's that chapter. Now we have to write a new one'."