Michael McDowell: We run down the Defence Forces at our peril

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan last week caused a major row in Government by announcing the potential closure of Cathal Brugha Barracks in Rathmines to provide for the building of social and affordable housing. Evidently the announcement took his ministerial colleagues by surprise, not least the embattled Simon Coveney, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence.

Fine Gael leader in the Seanad Regina Doherty sharply criticised Ryan’s announcement last Thursday as “ill-judged and made at the wrong time”. That suggests Ryan might only be guilty of jumping the gun. It left open the issue as to whether his predicted closure is planned or contemplated. She promised an early debate in the Seanad on the future of the Defence Forces. Yesterday the closure announcement was disavowed completely in the Seanad by FF Acting Leader Senator O’Loughlin as “without foundation”.

If the Rathmines barracks is closed, the Defence Forces will have only one small space in the greater Dublin area, McKee Barracks, an elegant and ornamental Victorian barracks on Blackhorse Avenue now used mainly for Army administration and as the Dublin base of the Army’s equitation school. If one of the Army brigades is still to be stationed in Dublin, McKee Barracks will not suffice.

This is all part of a wider picture of continued run-down and asset-stripping of the Defence Forces. In 1999, this paper reported that the Defence Force’s strength was 11,500. Now its nominal strength is 9,500 but recruitment is causing huge problems in keeping the Defence Forces functional.

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We have got to the point where the Naval Service has ships tied up for want of crew. The Air Corps is hopelessly under-equipped to carry out even basic defence, maritime and security functions. The Army has huge retention problems based on low pay – an issue to be addressed by a commission. The scandal of loyal, serving soldiers, having to scrape by with Family Income Supplement was truly shocking.

Constitutional role

It is well to remember the fundamental democratic constitutional role of the Defence Forces. They are the protector and ultimate enforcer and defender of the democratic authority of the State itself, acting in the aid of the civil power. The President is the constitutional commander in chief of the Defence Forces. Officers hold their commissions from the President.

The Oireachtas is the only body which can raise and/or maintain any military or armed force in the State. The Defence Forces are our constitutional bulwark against armed aggression or rebellion. All of this is confirmed in the Constitution – our basic law.

We need a deterrent to terrorism and para-militarism as well as control of our territorial airspace and seas. The Defence Forces intelligence section is the agency which has responsibility for external security threats to our State.

We have a growing population and growing wealth but we are allowing the Defence Forces to wither and atrophy. Our capacity to participate in UN operations is increasingly under pressure.

We led a UN operation in Mali; we couldn’t do that now. We have no effective control of our own airspace and faltering control over our maritime economic zone. We totally lack any military grade radar or sonar capacity.

We are sitting ducks for many types of imaginable armed and hostile challenges to the State including cyber-warfare. We will only truly appreciate the awful risks we are taking when it is far too late to respond.

There are arguments for and against joining Nato; I think we are better off remaining outside it, like Sweden, Switzerland, Finland and Austria. They, however, take their defence seriously. Are we less exposed than the Swiss? But if we were a member of Nato, the folly of spending so little on our defence would be writ large for us by others.

Military training

The Reserve Defence Force has been wound down hugely. As a former FCA member, I question the wisdom of having so few citizens with the elementary military training needed to assist the permanent Defence Forces in any national crisis. Like, the Garda reserve, the Army reserve is being left to wither for want of political interest or support.

Coveney stated last week that “capacity issues” were undermining the Defence Forces and “needed to be addressed”. He added that he has “accepted this for a long time”. He thinks the forthcoming publication of the Commission on the Defence Forces will “trigger a very fundamental debate in Ireland about how we financially resource military and defence issues”.

We need commitment from Government to the Defence Forces – not a short-sighted, demoralising and “ill-judged” sound bite about bulldozing the only significant Defence Forces base in Dublin city or county.

We have taken the battery out of the national smoke alarm. Heaven help us when a fire starts.