Reservist recruits let go over defence cuts

NEW RECRUITS to the Reserve Defence Forces (RDF) are being let go before they are sworn in because of cuts to defence spending, it has emerged.

The future of the RDF has also been included in the Government’s latest two-year value-for-money and policy review initiative.

A group of recruit reservists attached to the 62nd Infantry Company at Cathal Brugha barracks in Rathmines, south Dublin, were informed at training on Tuesday night that their involvement with the RDF was being terminated.

The group had begun training last November.

It was believed the recruitment ban would not impact those reservists who had already begun their training. A spokesman for the Defence Forces said because of the recruitment ban across the public sector, several hundred reservists would not advance to full membership of the RDF.

Plans to use reservists on overseas missions were finalised three months ago. However, it was announced in the last fortnight that those plans had been abandoned, leading to speculation that the RDF was being abolished.

The first group of reservists was to travel to Kosovo with their colleagues from the Permanent Defence Forces (PDF) at the end of the year. In recent years the RDF has undergone a period of restructuring and modernisation, with reservists now required to give a greater commitment to training. Numbers have fallen from 12,000 to around 7,000.

The RDF fulfils a number of duties including aiding the civil power when needed. It would be called up to help defend the country in the event of armed aggression. Its members can also be asked to assist the PDF in supplying armed escorts for large sums of cash in transit, to augment fisheries patrols and to perform a range of ceremonial duties.