Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish I had Deputy Berry's military training. I am after running a few laps of the building.

I join others in welcoming this legislation. It is very positive. It is very interesting historically that this combines the old Air-Raid Precautions Acts 1939 to 1946. That was very old legislation when we were in a very different historic period. I had a grand-uncle who served in the LDF at the time. A point of interest is that one of the last surviving air-raid sirens in the country still operates and is tested once a year at Ardnacrusha power station. It was very interesting when we were teaching classes in Parteen National School that once a year this booming air-raid siren would be heard at the power station. It was a real throwback to yesteryear. The children in our local school did not always need to watch YouTube clips to figure out what this sound was like; they were able to experience it in real time.

I acknowledge, as others have, the immense role of the Civil Defence. Certainly, in County Clare, we are very familiar with its work. The Minister has been in Clonlara, County Clare himself, and to Springfield which is an area very prone to flooding. Thankfully in the lifetime of this Government it has been dealt with by really robust flood defences. What we saw there time and again in 2009, 2011, 2015 and 2019, was the members of the Civil Defence going down in dinghies, waders, large vehicles, and all-terrain vehicles and bringing people out of their houses to bring them to safety. They were absolutely outstanding frontline emergency personnel and we are hugely grateful. We saw yet again last March when we had a massive influx of Ukrainian refugees to our county, that it was again the Civil Defence in Clare and the mid-west that stepped up to the mark. I note that 18 families were helped directly to find accommodation in that same period. The efforts of the Civil Defence in that regard have been absolutely immense.

I will speak on the matter of Defence Force accommodation for families. I am from the southern area of County Clare. Our local army barracks is Sarsfield Barracks in Limerick city. Indeed, Meelick, from where I hail, has a housing estate called Elton Court. This housing estate was built in the 1980s in partnership with Father Harry Bohan. It was an affordable housing scheme and it was really targeted to entice military and Defence Force families from the city of Limerick out to County Clare where they could rear their families. It was such a successful scheme. Beyond County Kildare and the Curragh area, this is the largest housing scheme, if you like, of Defence Forces personnel, be they current or former. That model of affordable housing is something I would like to see replicated again. If the Minister, Deputy Martin, is in County Clare sometime, I can show him first-hand this scheme from the 1980s. It is an estate of high-quality affordable housing, which was really earmarked for those in the Defence Forces, and it still operates really successfully. I know there is a whole review underway and terms and conditions of pay for the Defence Force personnel will rightly improve but we also need to look at those other metrics of providing for them, including accommodation. The solution I have suggested is one that needs to be looked at a bit further.

We had a discussion here on all things defence related again about a week ago and the clock was ticking. I have a little bit more time today so I will elaborate on an issue I dealt with and tried to represent that day. I refer to the whole decade of centenaries and the period of commemoration we now find ourselves in. Every single weekend there are commemorations happening the length and breadth of the country. The best of those commemorations are probably not the State-led ones; they are probably the community-led ones where politics is left in the wings and a community historically leads out their own local event remembering their own local people who fought and many of whom died seeking Irish independence and during the tragic years of the Civil War.

I think it is unforgivable to see members of the Opposition, in particular Sinn Féin, at weekends marching alongside individuals with black berets and paramilitary uniforms. It is absolutely incongruent to have a spokesperson on defence coming in here to speak for the men and women of the Permanent Defence Force, being their voice, and then at the weekends walking the streets with people who wear paramilitary uniforms. There is only one Óglaigh na hÉireann. There is only one Irish Army and this absolutely does not fit and is an insult to those who don the uniform and the harp brass buttons on their tunics, who represent Ireland overseas, who defended Ireland, who go on many peacekeeping missions overseas, and who have a very proud record. Some of them have paid the ultimate price of their lives. It is an insult to them to see some Deputies in this House, particularly those in Sinn Féin, marching with one army at the weekend and speaking for a different army when they come in to this House. I really think it is time we look at some form of legislation that prohibits the wearing of parliamentary uniforms. We can of course have a carve out in terms of historical re-enactment. That is something we should embrace. It is nice to see members of communities, including my own in County Clare, don old, historic Irish Volunteers and Cumann na mBan uniforms, non-politically - without any connotations to modern day politics - and wear those uniforms with pride to re-enact historically and represent events of yesteryear. It is wrong to don the black beret and a uniform that has no semblance, no reason and no logic whatsoever in the context of current Irish statehood.

That needs to be taken out of Irish politics, and it certainly should not be walking in step with any debate we have in these Houses on the Defence Forces.

If we want to hear logical and sound debate on the Defence Forces from the other side of the floor, I will turn to the likes of Deputy Berry who has lived this life and is an encyclopaedia on all things related to the Defence Forces. If I want to hear a logical voice on this subject, I will turn to him rather than to somebody who walks at the weekend with people in paramilitary uniforms and at other times of the year speaks for the Permanent Defence Force. It just does not wash.

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