The government will amend its Defence White Paper within three weeks to include key concessions to the Defence Forces Chief-of-Staff, as evidence of continuing mistrust of Government among senior Defence Forces personnel emerged yesterday.
There was serious concern among senior officers and Defence Forces representative bodies last night at the omission of changes, detailed in a document agreed last Thursday by the Minister and Chief-of-Staff, from the White Paper approved by Cabinet yesterday and published by the Minister, Mr Smith.
However, a spokesman for the Department of Defence confirmed that the written agreement between the Minister and the Chief-of-Staff, Lieut Gen David Stapleton, was approved by the Cabinet yesterday with the White Paper. The White Paper had not yet been rewritten, the spokesman said, as the Department wanted to await the outcome of yesterday's Cabinet meeting before publishing the final version.
The suspicion voiced privately by senior Defence Forces sources, and publicly by the representative bodies after yesterday's publication, confirmed continuing tension between the Minister, his Department and the Government on one hand and the Defence Forces on the other.
The Chief-of-Staff confined himself to saying the White Paper would be implemented, but expressed no welcome for it. "The White Paper is a decision of Government and always the Defence Forces will implement a decision of Government," he said.
The White Paper finally agreed by Cabinet after an often-heated negotiation process over several months included a number of important concessions to the Defence Forces and key elements won by the Minister over Department of Finance objections.
Acknowledging the tensions between the Department and the Defence Forces, the secretary-general of the Department of Defence, Mr David O'Callaghan, said: "We have all learned from this. We have to have a look at the relationship and that has been agreed."
Mr Smith said yesterday the White Paper was "a commitment to developing the Defence Forces into a world-class military operation".
The White Paper outlines plans for the development of the Defence Forces for the next decade. Among its central features is a cut in the strength of the Defence Forces by up to 1,000, together with an investment of an extra £250 million in equipment.
The impact of the planned troop cuts will be significantly softened by the document agreed last week between Mr Smith and Lieut Gen Stapleton, relevant parts of which will now be written into a new version of the White Paper. The Chief-of-Staff will be given control of "automatic recruitment" to fill vacancies up to the 10,500 figure, rather than being obliged as in the past, to wait for Government approval for every recruitment.
The new agreement says an additional 250 soldiers can be in training at any one time, bringing the strength to 10,750. It says no further troop cuts will be proposed over the next decade, and gives the Chief-of-Staff responsibility for deciding where within the Defence Forces the cuts will come. It also includes other concessions including giving the Chief-of-Staff control over promotion of officers and NCOs, subject to ministerial approval.