Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I want to welcome the publication of the commission’s report. Fianna Fáil welcomes this report. We called for it to be established by a motion before the Dáil in 2019, when we were in opposition. It was a key component of our input into the programme for Government, which was agreed by all three parties. It has the commitment of the Minister and of all of the backbenchers in those three parties. The publication of the report is a crucial step forward. I look forward to the Minister's work to consult with others. I also look forward to him bringing back to Government the response to that report. It will be keenly observed, both by members of Defence Forces in my constituency, and by the many people in this House who are committed to the Defence Forces.

I wish to talk about two areas that I believe the Minister and the Government need to address when responding to the commission’s report, the first of which is the issue of pay. The report states that the issue of pay in the Defence Forces "does not seem to fully reflect the totality of the remuneration package" and the commission believes more needs to be done to better communicate what that package is. The difficulty is that that sentence does not sit with the experiences that I, and many other Members have had, when family members of Defence Forces personnel come to us to talk about pay. That includes all of the issues around basic pay, allowances and so on. We talk about pride and respect but you cannot use pride and respect to pay for your shopping, your housing or to support your children’s education.

There has been significant change in the way the Defence Forces provide things, for example, housing. Defence Forces that are more modern believe that this is perhaps not what they should do, particularly for Defence Forces families. However, we have to respect that this puts an additional cost on those families. There is the broader issue of housing in the State, which we have to reflect in the pay and conditions of members of the Defence Forces. There is obviously a significant issue around different contracts and how different members the Defence Forces with different experiences experience that burden. The establishment of a pay body to deal with this issue in the Defence Forces is crucial, albeit it should be separate from the broader issues that are addressed in the report of the Commission on the Defence Forces.

My second point relates to the issue of military leadership, which is addressed in the commission's report in the creation of new posts for each of the different forces and so on. We also have to look at the issue of financial control, at what is to be controlled by the Department of Defence and at what is to be controlled by the leadership of the Defence Forces in terms of spending, the ability to spend and the prioritisation within that spend. Who will be the accountable officer and how will that relationship with the Oireachtas work? More needs to be done in that area. I know that the Minister understands that issue. We need to continue to work on it.

I welcome the work of the commission. Many people were highly sceptical of another commission or another body when this was established. It has shown a commitment to understanding the challenges the Defence Forces face. It clearly nails its colours to the mast when it says that the high-level ambitions for Ireland’s military capabilities, as they have been set out in the White Paper, are not supported by the resources that have been provided to the Defence Forces. That is key. That is one thing this commission has nailed. As well as this, there is a disconnect between policy, resources and capabilities. We have to urgently clarify the level of ambition. That level ambition will be key in how the Government responds. What is our role in the world? What is the role of the Defence Forces within our foreign policy?

Earlier, Deputy Ó Cuív made reference to Article 29 of the Constitution. There are obligations within the Constitution that the Government needs to uphold. However, there are obviously different views on what our Defence Forces should do. In my view, international peacekeeping is key. It provides opportunities for members of the Defence Forces to access skills and training they would not otherwise have, if we had an isolationist approach or if we withdrew in any way from peacekeeping. I hope that this is underscored in the level of ambition that we set for the Defence Forces. We also need to look the cost of that. We need to look at cost of the threats such as those posed by cybersecurity. We saw what happened with the HSE cyberattack. We need to make sure that the Defence Forces are capable of aiding this State in preventing cyberattacks. This is probably now at the coalface of how many rogue governments may try to damage democracies. I want to see this protection within our level of ambition, as the commission’s report calls it.

There is also the idea of an independent foreign policy. This State has a proud tradition in this area and we in Fianna Fáil cherish it. The idea is that Ireland is neutral but that our non-aligned position does not in any way mean that we should resile from calling out aggression, militarisation and so on. I want to make sure that this independent foreign policy is also contained within the level of ambition for our Defence Forces.

The men and women who serve in the Defence Forces do an incredible job. Often there are several generations within families that have committed to the Defence Forces. This State needs to support them on a basic level in pay and conditions. We need to support them in the level of ambition we have for the Defence Forces as a country. We need to tie all of that to our ambition for our international foreign policy.

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