Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and acknowledge the presence of the Tánaiste earlier in the debate.

As Senator Horkan stated, there are some serious matters in this Bill that need to be addressed. I will come back to them in a moment, but to put the Bill in context, it is being put before the House at a time when the Defence Forces are crippled by at least a decade of neglect. It raises the question whether it was ever wise to do away with the separate Minister for Defence. The Defence Forces have been allowed to deteriorate in numbers to a pitiable state, where there are fewer than 8,000 serving members, ships we paid for are tied up in quays for want of crews to run them, the numbers in the Reserve Defence Forces have collapsed and morale is correspondingly low. That has happened over the past 12 years and, I am afraid to say, in circumstances where - it is all very well to establish a commission on the future of the Defence Forces - it was blindingly obvious that the capacity of the Defence Forces, even to send units abroad to participate in international peacekeeping efforts has been severely constrained by the fact that the numbers in the Defence Forces have collapsed so badly.It is not sufficient for the Defence Forces to have 8,000 members, not by any manner of means, for the proper defence of this country or for proper support for the Government of the day in emergencies of various kinds.

I do not want to make a song and dance about it, but I was a member of the FCA in the 1960s and 1970s. This sounds like ancient history now. There were at that time 20,000 people enlisted as volunteers in a local defence force who could and did come to the aid of the civil power and the Permanent Defence Forces to confront a national crisis. These volunteers do not exist anymore, in the main, and the few volunteer reservists who are there labour under very difficult circumstances. Why is this the case? It is because, short-sightedly, nearly all the bases of operation for the FCA were sold. If people want to be volunteers in the reserve forces, they may have to travel 60 km to 80 km, at least, even to attend a training session. Who is going to do that? Who do we expect is going to do that? Why do we expect that people are going to do that? It is a real disgrace.

I notice the Tory party in England is talking about bringing back national service. We eliminated volunteer support for our Defence Forces by that particular set of policies I spoke of. We now have a situation across Ireland where the number of young women and men who could handle a weapon, take part in an effective military organisation in the case of an emergency and provide support to the Permanent Defence Forces in an operation of whatever kind, be it environmental, insurgency or you name it, has collapsed. The number of people who actually know how to handle a weapon, let alone take an order, has collapsed. In fact, somebody commented recently that perhaps gangland Dublin is better trained than others. This is a sad situation.

I make that point because the Government chose the middle of the three alternative strategies for the Defence Forces to follow on foot of the commission's menu of possible strategies. It is not enough, but even it is not being implemented. We have a situation where Russian submarines are patrolling in our waters, examining our communications cables and the like and our Naval Service can do nothing about it with half its ships tied up in their bases. This is a sad situation. Our Air Corps is fundamentally underprovided for. The decision to award the search-and-rescue function outside the Defence Forces was, again, misconceived. We really have taken one decision after another the result of which has been to run down the Defence Forces to their present situation. We are being told now that everything is going to change. I do not believe everything is going to change because I do not believe there is a will to change it.

I noted the Tánaiste's defence of having the Secretary General of the Department as an ex officiomember of the external oversight body. First, he is not external. Second, the functions of that body are entirely inconsistent with his membership of it. Third, and this is the important point, is the fact that the Tánaiste stood here and said this was merely the delivery of another independent view about who should be a part of this body. I do not really care if that was the view of the body. This is a mistake, and a bad one, and it is compounding a mistake to refuse to change this situation.

I bring the House's attention to page 13 of the Bill, where it is stated that "The External Oversight Body shall be independent in the performance of its functions".Then there is the provision, set out on the next page, whereby the Secretary General of the Department of Defence is to participate in evolving strategy decisions, which are supposed to be external decisions arrived at independently. Nobody in their right mind considers that to be correct. When I introduced the Garda Inspectorate, I did not set out that the Secretary General at the then Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform would decide what was adequate deployment of resources or whatever within An Garda Síochána. The fact the Tánaiste has said that somebody else recommended this and he does not intend to back down on it is no excuse for what is a really fundamental mistake.

The wording of section 2A of the Defence (Amendment) Act 1990, to be inserted by section 24 of the Bill, relates to what is required of military associations when speaking on matters of Government policy. This section should be better and more clearly defined. The House has the opportunity to do that on Committee Stage.

In case I am told I am being too negative, I have one positive point to make.