Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister previously described this report as a "watershed". It certainly is a time for honest and open debate and, I hope and I believe, clear decision-making.

Since the Second World War and the establishment of the principle of Ireland's neutrality, successive Governments have felt that being neutral meant we did not need or, perhaps, want a military with the real capacity to protect our country from foreign aggression. Throughout those decades, we had many other priorities and calls on our money and we still do. We raised the flag of neutrality and that shielded us from having to invest in the array of equipment and the capacity that are the hallmarks of a military neutral nation, one that does not depend on others to monitor its airspace or economic waters. For our own convenience, we have sometimes confused military neutrality with military impotence. Neutrality is a truly important principle that I believe commands the majority support of our people but we need to define what we mean by it and truly invest in it.

I join with the Minister and others in thanking the chair and committee members for their outreach work and for producing this document. It requires us to now give real consideration to all of its recommendations and to make decisions. The report presents us with a number of options on the future of our Defence Forces. It describes and presents three levels of ambition. Ambition level 1 is to continue as we are, acknowledging in doing so that we can no longer pretend, if we invest as is or maintain our capacity as is, that we are able to conduct a meaningful defence of the State against a sustained act of aggression from a conventional military force, as the report suggests, and we would likely need to reduce our commitment to international peace and humanitarian activities. I genuinely do not believe the majority of Members of this House or the majority of our electorate want us to make that choice. If we continue as is, we now have to do it with our eyes open to exactly what means. We have no means of knowing who or what is transiting our skies, territorial waters or economic zone, other than if another nation tells us about it. That is not being neutral if we are dependent on another nation, however friendly it might be, to tell us who is transiting our skies and seas.

In my view, the realistic option and the difficult choice presented to all of us in this House and to the Government in particular is to accept ambition level 2 or ambition level 2 with some modifications. The first priority is the women and men who serve this nation in our Defence Forces. They are the starting point and the fundamental building block. They deserve better pay, better working conditions, better accommodation and better equipment. That is the starting point. We need to ensure they are valued truly by providing decent wage packets, decent accommodation in which they can house themselves and their families and the appropriate equipment to carry out the roles with which we task them. Having a content and motivated force, whose voice is effectively represented by its trade union representatives as part of the normal trade union movement and as a fully integrated part of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, in my view must be our first and most urgent priority. Unless and until we ensure our soldiers, air crews and sailors are valued and truly appreciated in real and practical terms, not by way of speeches in this House but by money in their pay packets and the accommodation that is worthy of them, everything else we talk about in terms of our Defence Forces will fail.

I want to look at each branch separately and briefly. I will start with what is advised for the Army. We need to protect our troops by replacing the existing APCs with level 4 armoured vehicles, establishing joint cyber defence command and providing 100 additional specialists to manage cyber defence and defence IT. This is a truly important aspect of the recommendations. Various committees, including the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs, have looked at cyber defence. We need to protect ourselves from a different type of potential attack into the future. The report also advises the strengthening of military intelligence capabilities, which means the establishment of a joint military intelligence service and an intelligence school, and the development and renaming of the Army Ranger Wing in line with best international practices.

It is recommended that the Naval Service be renamed the Irish Navy and that, at least, nine modern ships be provided by the end of this decade, with double crews providing a minimum of 220 days each at sea. As the Minister, Deputy Coveney, will know in the worst of times we provided the four newest vessels, the LÉ Samuel Beckett, the LÉ William Butler Yeats, the LÉ George Bernard Shaw and the LÉ James Joyce. They are the only really modern vessels we have. We need to see investment in replacement of our flagship and the type of vessels that will provide the capacity to patrol the most difficult waters of the North Atlantic that are our waters.

For the Air Corps the report recommends an increased and enlarged fleet of fixed and rotary aircraft, primary radar capacity to ensure that a complete recognised air picture is maintained such that, as I said earlier, we know, rather than be dependent on others to tell us, who is transiting our airspace; the development of anti-drone or counter UAS capacity; and the development of strategic air lift capacity. Post-Kabul, I tabled a parliamentary question as to whether we can provide air lift capacity, either on our own or in conjunction with others because there is shared capacity across small and medium sized countries. It certainly is something we should provide.

In terms of our Reserve Defence Force, it needs to be revitalised and truly integrated into a genuine single Defence Force across all spheres of defence. In ten minutes, I cannot do anything like justice to this report. It is a truly comprehensive programme of change that will require considerable support and buy-in from the personnel who compose the Defence Forces, military and civilian, and all of us in this House. It has been, I know, always easier to fund a new school or a new health centre than it is to fund military equipment. We need to bring the public with us.

Perhaps we can now ignite a popular debate about what we, as a nation, want from our Defence Forces.

In past decades, we asked our troops, women and men, to face down armed criminal gangs, to defend this State against armed subversives and to put themselves in harm's way in defence of peace across this globe, from Lebanon to Timor-Leste. We owe all of them a debt of gratitude. We can now honour that debt by ensuring a modern and confident Ireland can have modern and confident Defence Forces that are fit for purpose and suitable for our times. It is over to the Government, in the first instance. I heard the Minister say the commission's recommendations are not on hold. However, we cannot simply allow this report to join the litany of other reports that have been carried out. I believe the Minister when he says he will come back here with concrete proposals to make transformative changes that will give security to the Defence Forces to provide the security that this nation requires and deserves.

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