Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Defence Forces have been under resourced for decades. It is astonishing to know that Ireland’s Defence Forces could not adequately protect itself from the risk of an attack should one happen. The recent report was probably the most significant report into the Defence Forces in 50 years. It looks like the Minister has inherited a total mess from his predecessor which raises serious questions. Was he asleep at the wheel for a number of years leaving the current Minister and our State to clean up a huge messes with the continuous under-resourcing of the Defence Force?

Then there are the Women of Honour revelations. I may add that it is now alleged that previous Ministers knew of these allegations and brushed them under the carpet. An independent investigation has to be called here to see who knows what and when they knew it as it very much looks like someone sat on their hands on this hugely important issue to the women in the Defence Forces.

This and other things that have taken place in the Defence Forces show the height of incompetence by the previous Minister or Ministers. Even the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, called it out on numerous occasions when in opposition.

We, the State, are now left with options. One is to maintain the Defence Forces in its current form but increasing spending by tens of millions of euro on the current budget of €1.1 billion.

The second option is to enable the Defence Forces to hire more people and to purchase the likes of radar equipment and military aircraft. This would cost about €500 million extra annually. The third option is to significantly increase the Defence Forces capabilities and this would involve the purchase of fighter jets, which looks like it would cost €3 billion each year to fund.

It is going to be hugely challenging for the Government to respond to this report due, as I said earlier, to the previous Minister of State with responsibility for defence's incompetence. We have fallen miles behind in what many would say is the real world. The recent report was a fine piece of work but was it the Russians making a move off our south-west coast that woke this Government up? It made our country look weak and sloppy. When a few fishermen from west Cork sat down with the Russians much of this worry off our coast receded.

Why have we not been proactive instead of reactive on our Defence Forces? When talking about defence, why do people like confrontational talk instead of doing as the west Cork fishermen did and sitting down and peacefully negotiating a solution suitable to all? It is obvious Ireland could not adequately protect itself from any risk of an attack should one happen. In a world that can at times be so volatile no one ever knows, but we could well face attack. I genuinely ask whether there is a political will in this country to make changes.

If we look at the last Government, the Minister of State with responsibility for defence, Deputy Kehoe, did nothing to make changes. How can this instil any confidence in the public that this Government will make the drastic changes that now needs to be made? The paltry amount spent to date on defence by our Government has left Ireland wide open. What successive Governments have spent to date reflects poorly on the priority of defence in Ireland. I do not understand how some commentators are questioning us spending money and why we now have to make a political argument to spend potentially hundreds of million of euro on the Defence Forces to protect our own people when much of this should have been spent already, down through the years. In the recent report, our Defence Forces were looked at in the same way as those of eight other similar countries that have made significant investment in their defence forces down through the years and that are not falling behind like we have in this island.

The issue of pay in the Defence Forces is once again a historical and controversial issue that was left to drag on by the current Minister's predecessors. Many feel the way forward here could be a simple measure to allow the two military representative organisations to affiliate with ICTU on the issue of pay. It is wrong that military representatives had been locked out of national pay talks for decades. This has led to a widening gap between military pay and other pay. It would be wrong of any politician in here not to co-operate on spending the necessary funds to bring our Defence Forces up to some kind of recognisable standards and to allow this country stand proud and have the ability to protect itself if any danger arises.

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