Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Like other speakers, I welcome the Bill. It essentially codifies a lot of the current practices. Part of the difficulty for me is that while this is welcome and clear command structures are definitely needed in cases of lethal force, we are in many ways treating the symptoms and not the root causes. Currently our Defence Forces based in Lebanon are part of a mixed battalion involving Maltese, Polish and Hungarian soldiers. It is important that if a Polish major is giving orders to an Irish captain who in turn is relaying them to a Hungarian rifle unit on the ground that those things can flow clearly.

What happened to the days when we could send a full battalion of our own and did not need to worry about these things? The reality is that our ability to do that has been eroded by organisational problems and problems with recruitment, support and retention. This Bill is treating the symptoms of those problems but not the problems themselves.

We have a difficulty with recruitment. Obviously, Covid is making that harder at present but there is a long-standing problem with recruitment. When we hear about the Defence Forces in the media it is either, as has been said, that they are heroes who come to the aid of a civilian power and provide support that others cannot or we hear about the poor conditions of Defence Forces families who are living on the breadline. If a person sees such news stories, will he or she want to put a family in that situation of living in penury despite the fact that he or she is risking his or her life for everyone else? That is a fundamental difficulty which, if we do not address it, will continue to cause problems.

There is not just a recruitment problem. We are losing experienced members of the Defence Forces and people who have skills and qualifications and are in leadership positions. When we start losing them, we create a spiral of unhealthiness and unsustainability within an organisation.

If there is only one mechanic in a particular unit, he or she will be under significant extra pressure to do overseas duty. Where does that leave him or her? He or she will have to go on duty for 18 months at a time again and again and be pulled away from his or her family and home simply because we do not have others with the same qualification as a result of all of these problems.

That is the sort of thing that will make a person wonder if it is worth it for him or her. Being a member of the Defence Forces is, in many ways, a vocation and we are letting them down with poor management and organisation. As I said, we are creating a sick organisation which people leave because it is sick. This builds up more pressure on those who remain and encourages them to leave as well. It creates an ongoing spiral. This is something we have seen in many other organisations.

Let us get things sorted to ensure the Defence Forces can function. What are we doing right now to ensure they can function? Other Members spoke about officers doing the work of two, three or four other officers. Are the structures we are using in the Army suitable for what we are demanding of the men and women in our Defence Forces? The fact that we are seeing a brain drain and are struggling to recruit would suggest that the structures we have are not suitable.

We have a proud tradition of involvement in the United Nations and peacekeeping work, and a lot of young men and women want to be part of that tradition but do not see the Army as an appealing place to work because of what we are talking about. The vocation for international duties and peacekeeping work has been tarnished by cosying up to things like PESCO and multilateral arrangements.

We need to consider deeply the value we as a society place on our Defence Forces and the roles that we will ask them to undertake. As climate change bites, the world becomes more chaotic and flooding in Ireland becomes worse, resulting in the chaotic scenes of flooding we have seen around the country where the Army has been called in, we will be coming to the Defence Forces for their expertise and ability to respond quickly more and more. The situations they will go into will be more and more dangerous.

If, as I said, we want people to answer the call and take up a vocation to serve the State as a member of the Defence Forces, are we going to give them the support they need? I feel the Bill in some ways supports them and gives clarity to those who are serving overseas. However, as I said it is addressing the symptoms and not the root causes, and there are much wider concerns I hope we address.

See this speech in context