No more scope for cuts in Defence Forces, says representative group for officers

The strength of the Defence Forces has been reduced as far as it can go and the Government and senior military leaderships cannot expect badly needed weaponry and equipment to be funded by savings from further staffing reductions, the group representing officers has said.

The Representative Association for Commissioned Officers said the recent incident in Syria where 36 Irish troops serving with the United Nations were shot at and their armoured vehicles hit by sustained gunfire and a landmine underlined the need for the best equipment possible.

The association’s general secretary, Col Brian O’Keeffe, said even as the economy boomed, numbers in the Defence Forces had been cut by thousands, and after recent further reductions were now below 9,500 from a high of almost 14,000 in the early 1990s and 10,500 in 2009.

In total, numbers had been reduced by 28 per cent, 16 military installations including some of the biggest barracks in the State had been closed, and the forces had been reorganised from three brigades to two.

Investment in crucial equipment had been made using savings and the proceeds of barracks sales. "This, of course, is not sustainable in the long term," Col O'Keeffe told delegates at the group's conference in Macreddin, Co Wicklow.

Funding models
Future funding models for vital investment needed to be addressed in the White Paper on the future of defence in the Republic, he added. The association remained concerned at the continued hardship imposed on some of its members by the reorganisation of the forces from three brigades to two.

Association president Capt Ian Harrington said some officers who had been based in the now closed brigade headquarters in Athlone had based their families in places such as Galway and Donegal. While these commutes were manageable when working in Athlone, their new situation of being based in Dublin was intolerable.

Defence Forces chief-of-staff Lieut Gen Conor O’Boyle said he and his senior management had worked hard to reduce from 800 to 100 the number of personnel classified as having been “seriously discommoded”. Postings to barracks closer to home would reduce that number for a further group. However, some personnel who now found themselves living long distances from the nearest barracks could not be accommodated as easily and needed to consider that.