Tom Clonan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming in. I want to emphasise at the outset that the Commission on the Defence Forces and the high level action plan report reflect the Minister's authenticity and sincerity as Minister for Defence. I refer to the gender issue in particular and I know the Minister is personally invested in trying to encourage the recruitment of women into Óglaigh na hÉireann. I thank the Minister for this. The recommendations under LOA2 are badly and urgently needed in all their aspects.

This being an opportunity to make a statement I want to say some things about the Defence Forces in general. Page 4 of the report, in the opening remarks and background, mentions the White Papers on Defence of 2015 and 2019 as part of the scoping. Ireland is different from other jurisdictions in the European Union and in the West generally in that these White Papers were basically written by laypersons. I would make the observation that in both of those White Papers scant mention was made of, for example, Brexit. In the updated White Paper, Brexit is mentioned and there is a one- or two-line reference to same. It says that post-Brexit we share the same defence, security and intelligence concerns as our nearest neighbour but we actually do not; we have different and sometimes competing concerns. I want to highlight that in many respects there is a lack of an intellectual tradition in how we conduct defence, security and intelligence in the Republic. That is not the fault of any individual; it is just for historical reasons and others, which is something I would like to address.

In the report of the commission there is no mention of the greatest challenge that confronts us in the next ten or 15 years, that is, what will happen on this island in the next two decades. I do not believe that Óglaigh na hÉireann will exist in 20 years' time, nor do I believe An Garda Síochána will exist. They will have been replaced by some other entities such as the police service of Ireland or land forces Ireland. I do not know, nor does anybody else but that is the greatest existential challenge, notwithstanding events in Europe, that confronts us. In that context we have to imagine a military culture that is acceptable to everybody on this island. We have a military culture that I suspect is not a safe place for women, who comprise 51% of the Irish population. Such an organisation cannot purport to defend the State against any internal or external threat, much less be deemed acceptable to the much wider population on this island, depending on what happens next.That is why I welcome within the document, repeated and very prominent references to reforming the culture of the organisation. We inherited the physical infrastructure of defence in this State from the British in 1922 when they left. We inherited all the barracks and the physical infrastructure, but for some reason the Free State Army in the 1920s adopted the cultural infrastructure of the British Army of the time, with all of its arcane and anachronistic practices in terms of uniform, the fetishisation of status, the utilisation of negative reinforcement, punishment, and collective punishment as a learning tool within the organisation. That persists to this day. We need to decolonise the Defence Forces as part of the transformational culture. There are many aspects of Defence Forces' culture such as the very marked differential in status between commissioned officers and other ranks that has no parallel in Irish society. The British Army, which is considered to be the most socially conservative in Europe, has moved on. It is completely transformed from the way it was in the 1920s, governed by King's regulations and so on. Whoever is head of transformational change in the Defence Forces will have a major job on their hands to bring the Defence Forces kicking and screaming into the 21st century in terms of its culture.

In terms of the level of ambition to build on current capability and to address priority gaps, the Minister and I know that we have major gaps. At sea, we have 220 million maritime acres of ocean to patrol, 15% of the European Union's territorial waters. We are the only country in the European Union that cannot monitor its seabed or effectively patrol that amount of water, especially given the fact that a number of our vessels are tied up. I know the Minister is working to enhance pay and working conditions so that we attract recruitment to the Naval Service, but we have 19 sub-sea oceanic fibre-optic cables that carry one third of the Internet traffic and data between the European Union and the United States. Given what has happened in the Baltic Sea to the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, the rest of Europe is beefing up the security of its critical infrastructure. Under the Levchenko and now General Valery Gerasimov doctrine of asymmetric and hybrid warfare, the critical infrastructure of our State, and other states, is a target. That is why we had a Russian spy vessel in our waters. I think it is called Yantar. We have had several spottings and a lot of Russian naval and air activity in our jurisdiction. I know the Minister understands the priority attached to that, especially as we market ourselves as a digital republic. We must match that commitment to our airspace. We are the only country in the European Union that cannot monitor its airspace. We cannot see into it for lack of primary radar. We are hoping to address that. We rely on the Royal Air Force, RAF, as far as I understand it, through a memorandum of understanding between the Department of Defence and the Ministry of Defence to patrol our controlled airspace and intercept, monitor and escort Russian aircraft out. That is great but-----