Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to speak on the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024. I condemn the way this Government has treated legislation and the legislative process throughout its time in Government. At the Business Committee last week I highlighted that neither the Bill nor pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill were published despite the fact it was due for debate this week. The Bill was not published until last Thursday afternoon and the pre-legislative scrutiny was published after that on Friday. It completely undermines the whole process and the whole pre-legislative scrutiny process. What is the point of the committee's process of consulting with the organisations and trade unions affected by legislation when none of the findings is taken on board?

I raised the same issue yesterday during Second Stage of Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024. This Government treats consultation as a tick-box exercise rather than as meaningful engagement with people at the heart of the issues. It is unfair to waste people's time in this way and cruel to pretend that their views, experience or expertise will be taken on board at all when legislation is being drafted. It is extremely undemocratic and shows that this Government does not actually care about the needs or wants of the public.

This legislation and cultural transformation of the Defence Forces is long overdue. It has been over 20 years since the independent monitoring group was established to oversee the implementation of recommendations from a report detailing the bullying, harassment and sexual harassment across the Defence Forces. The Women of Honour group has long been calling for reform, but despite many reports and review groups, significant issues still remain across the Defence Forces.

Recommendations such as recruitment and participation of under-represented groups, proper and meaningful consultation with communities of under-represented groups, and achieving a 35% female participation rate should be implemented, as well as better pay for those in our Defence Forces.

All these plans to increase the capacity of the Defence Forces will not work unless the issue of pay is addressed.

I would also like to address the plans to increase the capacity and capability of the Defence Forces. I am concerned about the extent of the plans to increase the Defence Forces’ capability from our current capability, described by the Commission on the Defence Forces as level of ambition, LOA 1, to LOA 2 in six years and then to LOA 3 after that. The commission report outlines that when LOA 2 is achieved, the Defence Forces will have the ability to "deal with an assault on lrish sovereignty". LOA 3 will see them "developing full spectrum defence capabilities to protect Ireland and its people to an extent comparable to similar sized countries in Europe". What exactly is the goal here? I would be grateful if the Minister of State could address this in his closing remarks but that is doubtful. I am very concerned about the ambition for our Defence Forces to be like other European countries our size. What is this obsession with being just like everyone else in Europe? There has been a lot of discussion around the capacity of the Defence Forces. The complement is 7,500. At LOA 1, capacity should be at 9,500 so we are not even addressing that yet at LOA 2, capacity will be built up to 13,000. How are we going to get from 7,500 to 13,000 when we cannot get from 7,500 to 9,500? It does not make sense. There is a wider agenda here and that is something we will see develop over the next couple of years.

The Government and the Minister constantly undervalue the role we play on the international stage. I have said this many times but our neutrality and our peacekeeping efforts are very valued by those we assist abroad and by our own citizens at home. Ireland has often been seen as a voice of reason because of our neutrality. We have nothing to contribute by building armies like other European countries or by being part of some future EU army. We are respected internationally and the only people who seek to undermine that are European leaders with a vested interest. I hope the Minister, when considering the reform of the Defence Forces, remembers this and begins to value it as much as our citizens do.

Other Members have referred to cybersecurity and how that could be linked to doing away with neutrality. We can be cybersecure if we need to be cybersecure without giving up our neutrality and signing up to a European defence arrangement or joining NATO. Ultimately, signing up to a European defence arrangement is the equivalent of being in NATO because that is the way things are going. The two things are not comparable. We do not have to give up neutrality to be secure. We can be secure and be neutral. They are not mutually exclusive. The Government needs to get on board with that. The Irish people are on board with that but the Government needs to get on board as well.

We have heard the senseless argument that we have to be able to protect our undersea cables. There are 3,000 miles between Galway and America and our territory only covers a couple of hundred miles of that so there is a very large area where undersea cables could be attacked. They could be attacked without us being able to do anything about it. The reality is that many undersea cables are very secure because they automatically interchange. There have been no problems because there are so many cables that those switches can all operate. Unless a negative actor, which, of course, is Russia because it always is, attacks every cable simultaneously at the same time, our communications system will not be seriously affected.

There is no doubt that changes to this Bill are needed. The Minister would have known this had he waited for the committee to publish its pre-legislative scrutiny report before publishing it. I echo the Women of Honour’s concerns regarding the representation of the Department of Defence on the external oversight body whose establishment on a statutory basis this legislation provides for.

I am concerned with the language in the Bill, particularly the use of the word "may". For example the Minister of Defence "may" consult with the EOB prior to making appointments and the Minister of Defence "may" consult with the body regarding the promotion of an officer. This is very non-committal language and should be strengthened if the body is to have the role it is envisioned it should have. I also believe that inclusion of the Secretary General of the Department of Defence as an ex officiomember of the EOB should be removed as it calls into question the independence and full autonomy of the body. If it is going to be controlled by the Secretary General of the Department of Defence, what is the point of it? PDFORRA and RACO areex officiomembers but will be removed under this legislation. The only ex officiomember will the Secretary General of the Department of Defence. This shows what this external oversight body will be. It will not be external and it will not provide oversight. It will just be a body that sits there.

These are issues that were raised at meetings of the committee and if they had been listened to and addressed, we would be looking at much stronger legislation than has been put forward today. The Bill was published before the committee could publish its oversight, which makes this legislation weaker.

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