Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill, which sets out to rebuild and restructure our Defence Forces as a modern, confident entity that reflects our modern, confident State. Being straightforward, procedural at times and administrative in nature, the matters within it would ordinarily preclude extensive discussion or debate. Regrettably, the non-straightforward approach means this ordinary situation is not to be. There are three particular areas I wish to address.

The first is the external oversight body; second, the desire of the Tánaiste effectively to muzzle our Defence Forces and audaciously present this as merely formalising what is in place; and third, the scrapping, at last, of the plan to impose an unprecedented bar on the Director of Military Prosecutions and military judges from membership of a representative association.

I welcome progress on placing the EOB on a statutory basis. However, as has been brought to the Tánaiste's attention by the Oireachtas joint committee and multiple stakeholders, I do not welcome that while the EOB is meant to be independent in the performance of its functions, the Secretary General of the Department of Defence is at the same time to be an ex officio member. Members of the committee had various views on this, some believing that in order for the EOB to be truly independent, the Secretary General should not be on it at all, even in an ex officio capacity.

On Sinn Fein’s part, we understand the Tánaiste’s argument that the Secretary General is necessary as a conduit to the Minister. However, in accepting this, by extension, should a position then not be granted to general secretaries of the representative associations as well? They should also be conduits to their members.

With their wealth of experience in the Defence Forces and as long-established professional bodies, RACO, PDFORRA and the Reserve Defence Force Representative Association, RDFRA, could make an excellent contribution to the board. Their contribution to the work of the independent monitoring group speaks for itself. With their presence, I believe there would be better buy-in for the board from the ordinary members of the Defence Forces. The Tánaiste cannot have it both ways here. Either the ordinary men and women need to be represented or the Secretary General has to go.

On the second issue of the effective muzzling of the Defence Forces, I do not know where this bizarre desire has come from. It is a fact that members I know of the civil and public service, the Defence Forces and An Garda Síochána, in particular, have always been restricted in their political activities more so than ordinary members of the public. It is important, and accepted as important, that State officials are non-political in their work. This has always been understood, particularly within the Defence Forces. There has been no call for change or no testing of limits. There has been no demurring anywhere from this accepted position. Yet, despite there being no need, the Tánaiste wishes to impose new strictures that are far greater than those that exist. I want to know why that is. Why is the Tánaiste taking the proverbial sledgehammer not just to crack a nut, but in this case, a nut that does not even exist?

Of equal concern is how he has sought to present this as some simple formalisation of what is in place on the basis of “nothing to see here, move along now”, except there is plenty to see and we cannot and should not move along, as the Bar Council and the Law Society have made clear to the Tánaiste. If he refuses to heed Sinn Féin’s concerns here, perhaps he might attend to theirs?

In the end, he scrapped his plan to place an unprecedented bar on the Director of Military Prosecutions and military judges from membership of a representative association. The plan was without precedent anywhere in the civil or public service. Having read the report of the independent arbiter who adjudicated against the Tánaiste, I can understand why he relinquished it in the end. The Tánaiste’s position was untenable, and the Department’s inability to argue the case was embarrassing. Moreover, the silences minuted in the mediator’s report spoke volumes. Perhaps the Tánaiste thought this lack of precedent, untenability, inability to argue and those screaming silences might slip through the Bill unnoticed. Though resolved for now in respect of the Bill, I urge the Tánaiste to assure the Dáil that he will also abandon this policy in practice. It is necessary that he do so. It must be done given that the entire membership of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, the Defence Forces community, the legal profession and trade union movement have queried him on it. They have taken him to task on it, and rightly so. He can do it by undertaking to withdraw his appeal against the findings of the independent arbiter and by committing to amending the Defence Forces regulation, which prohibits the Director of Military Prosecutions from representative association membership.

It is my experience that this Government has defined itself by never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The evidence is all there, be it in housing, health or the mother and baby homes, not to mention the case in my constituency of buying the land at Castletown House. This Bill adds defence to that by making discussion of this Bill, something that should be straightforward, actually complicated.

Perhaps the Tánaiste does not realise. He is so removed and dizzy from the rotation of high office that he cannot see that this unnecessarily confrontational, non-collaborative and sometimes bizarre approach to the matters before us reflects the broader confrontational, non-collaborative and bizarre approach that has marked the tenure of this Government. It is an approach that has us here debating the Bill while we could be trying to resolve the recruitment and retention crisis that continues unabated within our Defence Forces, which have now shrunk to fewer than 7,500 personnel.

We could be addressing how we can currently put only a single ship to sea to monitor our extensive waters, how we lack subsea capabilities or the capacity to adequately monitor our skies or how we are in the unbelievable position where the Defence Forces' insignia is being used in the training of renegade forces in Libya and in identifiable in shoot-outs with the Wagner Group, no less, thereby threatening our neutrality, a UN embargo and, by extension, the safety of our peacekeepers in other areas where they are actually keeping the peace. I raised this previously with the Tánaiste, and it is beyond serious. The transgressors do not seem to take his office very seriously, and that is something he should take very seriously.

Then, there are his shenanigans with the triple lock. It is anti-democratic and a threat to our neutrality, which is the will of the majority of the people of Ireland and which he has no democratic mandate to alter. He can spin away, but it is a fact that removing the UN mandate is not the minor modification he is pretending it is. If he plays with this, he undermines the public on it at his peril because the public know full well that a UN mandate protects our peacekeepers. He knows, too, that what he proposes is a breach of commitments made to them on the Lisbon and Nice treaties. It is no wonder he is afraid to put it to the people in a referendum, voting down the Sinn Féin motion to do so.

This is not about our sovereignty, as the Tánaiste tries to spins it, and he knows that fine well. We cannot discuss this, however. What we must discuss here is his unwillingness for the ordinary men and women of the Defence Forces to have their voices heard. It is an unwillingness that extends to his refusal to listen sufficiently and fairly to stakeholders over the past two years and to engage appropriately and with the necessary sincerity and sensitivity. Now, he is looking all bewildered, and I can tell him that I know he is not. It extends, too, to how he refuses to allow the Oireachtas joint committee to scrutinise a secret NATO agreement or European Defence Agency projects-----

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