Madam, - The downside of a military parade such as that seen on Easter Sunday this year is that observers note not just what a State displays but also what it does not have. Mr Willie O'Dea rightly commits Irish troops to the EU battlegroup concept, but without any heavy armour a battlegroup is meaningless. The Irish Army has no heavy armour and for a battlegroup at least a squadron is required to achieve a high state of training and inter-operability with Irish infantry and other arms.
Jim Forde (April 20th) and Adrian English (April 27th) spotted, and have commented on, the other obvious area in which Ireland cannot perform at all. I agree with all that they say. Mr English is quite right to say that Eurofighter, or the F-22, is unaffordable and, in any event, not necessary. What is required is an aircraft such as the B Ae Hawk, or similar, which would be affordable to at least squadron size and would take our trainee pilots on from the Pilatus trainer, which the Air Corps already has, and which could also intercept a subsonic hostile intruder.
Considering that the total spending on the Irish Defence Forces is only 0.7 per cent of GDP (the NATO average is about 2.5 per cent), the acquisition of a squadron of heavy armour and a squadron of advanced jet trainer aircraft is easily affordable.
If Mr O'Dea, and the Government of which he is part, does not take this step, at least with regard to jet aircraft capable of dealing with an air intruder, then he had better have the telephone number of the British military attaché readily available so that he can phone him to make the necessary request for the RAF to do the job for him if the occasion should arise; but what price independence and sovereignty then after nigh on 90 years? Our founding fathers would spin in their graves. - Yours, etc,
CHRISTOPHER DORMAN-O'GOWAN, Newcastle upon Tyne, England.