Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill, which has been described as a straightforward tidying-up Bill that has not necessitated pre-legislative scrutiny. While I agree that the vast majority of the Bill's provisions amount to a tidying-up exercise, the decision not to have pre-legislative scrutiny should not have been taken. Pre-legislative scrutiny would have been a very good way of ensuring accountability and transparency and would have reassured me and my colleagues that that is the simple purpose of the Bill.

I mention Jadotville, which was also mentioned by a number of Deputies in the debate last week. I was due to speak on this Bill last week, which I believe would have been 59 years to the day since day two of the siege of Jadotville in 1961. As many Deputies have done, and we raised this issue with the Taoiseach and the previous Minister for Defence, I ask the Minister to re-examine that event. This is a time when we need true heroes and people to look up to. On this occasion, those heroes happen to be all men, and I have no difficulty with that, but I ask him to do the right thing. One hundred and fifty-five Irish soldiers who were defending themselves against 3,500 better armed forces, many of them mercenaries, were caught up in a nightmare scenario where they acquitted themselves beyond belief. While a number of them were wounded, nobody was killed. I ask the Minister to honour what the commandant asked for at the time, which was to give these men medals for bravery. He named the soldiers who deserved those medals, and they have never been honoured. I have no idea what the difficulty is with that. I may be an innocent human being in this world but it seems to me that at a time when we are crying out for heroes and people are begging us to do the right thing, this is one way to do that.

It is in the power of the Minister to implement Commandant Pat Quinlan’s recommendations regarding the soldiers. I had the privilege of knowing some of them. I will not list them. One of them died just three years ago in Galway. I have read the books and I have watched the movie. I recently read The Same Age as the Stateby Máire Mhac an tSaoi. She has one version of what happened. I have read other versions also. A number of soldiers have not been honoured. The parents of some of them were collecting the children's allowance at the time in question. The young men went out and did what they had to do. I understand that the defence tactics used in the siege of Jadotville have become standard textbook procedure in the German Army and other armies. I will leave that for now and ask the Minister to do the right thing for the soldiers.

I will mention the circumstances in Lesbos towards the end of my contribution. We certainly cannot talk about the Defence (Amendment) Bill without considering what has been happening in Greece and the belated action of the EU. The EU finally announced today it is going to do something but, of course, the emphasis is on strengthening the borders and not on examining the root causes of the conflict and what is leading people to leave their homes and families. People do not just get up and leave for the sake of it; they do so because of horror, war and violence. That should be recognised, particularly by the Irish, who have left these shores for hundreds of years.

I will leave aside the subject of the delegation of operational control for a moment and revert to it later. I understand the re-enlisting of suitably qualified people is now not part of the Bill. The Minister might correct me if I am incorrect on that. It is noteworthy that we have a need to re-enlist because we allowed for the development of circumstances in which we have run down all aspects of our Defence Forces. Commandant Conor King warned in September 2019 that the loss of expertise was having a direct impact on the safety, operational performance and well-being of Defence Forces personnel. I do not believe much has changed since except for the very limited recommendations on the commission.

The White Paper of 2015 recommended a review of HR policies, including retirement policies, and age profiles. According to the former Minister of State, Deputy Paul Kehoe, in 2019, a review of mandatory retirement ages in the Defence Forces was to be undertaken. It was never undertaken. The Minister might address that in his concluding speech.

The tidying up in respect of not enlisting minors is very welcome. I absolutely could not go against that. The gender-neutral language is also very welcome. We are taking out the words "minor" and "his" and including gender-neutral language. Again, it is interesting and significant that we are doing so against a background in which only eight of the 75 inducted into the Defence forces in the year up to 28 July 2020 were female. Five of the 44 recruited into the Army, three of the 28 recruited into the Naval Service and none of those recruited into the Air Corps were female. As of 31 July 2020, there were 483 women in the Army, by comparison with 6,304 men. There are 65 women in the Naval Service, by comparison with 838 men. There are 37 women in the Air Corps, by comparison with 685 men. It is important to put the gender-neutral language in context.

I have no difficulty with the extension of time to bring forward an appeal for a summary court-martial.

For me, these are the tidying-up exercises. I shall now address the main section, which inserts a new section, 17A, to permit the delegation by the Minister for Defence of a limited degree of control and authority over a Defence Forces contingent, referred to as "operational control". The Minister tells us this is simply to underpin current practices regarding day-to-day operational control of contingents of the Permanent Defence Force. It is regarded, therefore, as a tidying-up exercise but perhaps if the pre-legislative scrutiny had not been bypassed, we would have found out the modus operanditoday. There was delegation without legislation or safeguards. What problems emerged? What analysis was done in this regard to this ad hocdelegation of power? How many times was operational control delegated in this manner? What analysis of risk was done regarding our policy of neutrality? I would like those questions answered because we have sent soldiers to Mali as part of a very questionable, French-led, neocolonial approach. There are many other examples. If the Minister is asking us to pass tidying-up legislation, there is an onus on him to have an open and transparent approach. Have all the facts come out? How many times did the Minister delegate? In what way? What problems emerged? What were the safeguards? Did anything else emerge?

There is a little line at the end of the explanatory information on the Bill that states, interestingly, that there will be no cost to the Exchequer. This is ironic in a context in which our Defence Forces are the lowest paid of all public servants. Defence Forces strength is at its lowest in 50 years. All these facts and figures have been quoted ad nauseamby various Deputies and I am not going into them again except to say it is difficult to consider legislation such as this without commenting on the reality on the ground.

With regard to what is happening in Lesbos, I am simply horrified by the lack of action by the European Union, including this country. We can rush into action to pass legislation when it suits without mentioning the substantive problems on the ground. My difficulty with the section the Minister is inserting is that it is too open-ended. Operational control is ceded, albeit on a limited basis, for a certain purpose but there is no information so I cannot make a judgment. I want to support this Bill as tidying-up legislation but, in the absence of knowledge, I have a difficulty with that. When the power is delegated, in what capacity will the forces be used? Will they be helping out NATO? Will they be helping out a future European army? Will they be used in PESCO activities? I am aware we are involved in one such activity in an observational capacity. Every time we mention a European army, we are told we are hysterical and paranoid and that this has nothing to do with what the EU is about. I refer the Minister to the document produced by MEP Deirdre Clune, former MEP Brian Hayes, who went on to greater things in the golf club, MEP Sean Kelly and former MEP Mairead McGuinness, who has gone on to greater things. Page 13 states, "Can anyone really say for sure that we are now a truly neutral country?" They are looking at having a progressive Irish security and defence policy at EU level. The entire paper is an attempt to loosen what has already been loosened beyond belief – the concept of neutrality. They are loosening it up even more. I mentioned this to the Minister previously, and I believe he has his own views on that. He might enlighten us again as to what his views were on that paper and whether they have changed in the meantime.

We talk about there being no cost to the Exchequer but we are contributing a huge amount of money. Again, there is no transparency in that regard. There is no way that I, as a Deputy, mother and woman, can find out exactly what we are spending to enhance our military capacity in Europe while some of our soldiers here are in receipt of State subsidies under various schemes.

We have no problem increasing our money and our financial contribution to Europe with no transparency around it. My greatest difficulty is with that section. Perhaps the Minister could help me with my difficulty by clarifying what I have asked. How many times has that power been delegated in the past and for what purposes? What analysis has been conducted and why the need for it now as opposed to previously?

Finally, I cannot stand here without raising Lesbos again and our failure to do anything. The announcement today on the belated or promised action by the EU is troubling. The emphasis is on strengthening our borders and sending migrants back. If a person is a true refugee, however, we will let him or her in. This is the type of appalling language that is used. I do not think that is the Minister's language, actually. I do not think that is his way of doing things.

It is time we led through our new role in the UN and, indeed, I saw one of the Minister's colleagues commenting in the paper on Sunday on our role in the UN and he talked about our independence, empathy and vision. If anything, our strongest asset as a tiny country is our independence and, in the most positive way, we will stand up for our neutrality in the best way possible to allow us to be a shining light for peace in the world and not peace enforcement, which is exactly what happened in Katanga in 1961. It was an absolute catastrophe with regard to UN peacekeeping. It became peace enforcement on behalf of the rich mine owners and the white people. It is now almost 60 years later and we are using all of that language again, that is, "peace enforcement", as opposed to asking what are the best ways to bring peace to the world. Clearly, one of the best ways is to get rid of poverty and inequality, to allow people to stay in their own countries, to recognise the role of our very rich countries in allowing situations to develop where refugees and migrants run out of their countries which is something they do not want at all. We copper-fastened that by doing a despicable deal with Turkey. I have never agreed with that. It was not done in my name or the people I represent, nor was the situation where we prevailed on Greece to hold 13,000 people. Depending on which report one reads it could be 15,000 people, with 4,000 children and hundreds of unaccompanied minors. Can the Minister please clarify what we are doing about that as a neutral, strong independent country and as a proud and temporary member of the UN Security Council?

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