A meeting of the strategic management committee of the Department of Defence will take place this morning in response to unease in the Defence Forces at the contents of the soon-to-be-published White Paper on Defence.
The paper, as revealed in The Irish Times last week, says an overall staffing level of 10,500 - a reduction of 1,000 - would be reached by the end of 2001. The savings, estimated at £25 million a year, "would be fully reinvested in the Defence Forces".
The meeting was arranged after the Chief of Staff, Lt-Gen Dave Stapleton, had a meeting yesterday with the secretary general of the Department of Defence, Mr David O'Callaghan.
Today's meeting will be attended by the Chief of Staff and his two deputies and the secretary general and two assistant secretaries-general of the Department of Defence.
A military source said the meeting would have to do more than pay "lip-service" to concerns over the proposals. However, it is considered unlikely the broad thrust of the document will be altered at this stage.
In setting a new staffing level of 10,500, the document argues that existing domestic and international commitments should be capable of being met by fewer personnel. However, military sources have taken issue with this statement.
A former chief of staff, Lt-Gen Gerry McMahon, writing in The Irish Times on Wednesday, described the contents of the leaked White Paper as "shoddy and unprofessional".
The Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, is due to bring the document to Cabinet on February 22nd, following which it will be published.