Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Through the Chair, it is outrageous to say, as Senator Craughwell has said, that members of the Defence Forces cannot become members of a committee in a sporting club or any organisation. Nothing changes in that respect. My own club, Nemo Rangers, benefited enormously from military personnel through the years who helped us win All-Ireland club championships and so on. One, Shea Fahey, came from Kildare. There was also the late Séamus Coughlan and I could go on. There was no problem with them turning up at an underage committee or a management committee, and there will be no problem in the future in respect of matters pertaining to the club and how the club should be operated. That will stay. I ask Senator Craughwell to accept that much at least. Senators are talking about confusion. Nothing changes in that respect. All of this was in defence regulations. We are now providing clarity in the form of primary law. When a soldier took an oath, he or she took an oath not to become engaged in a political matter. The term "gagging order" was used earlier. It is not a gagging order. The representative associations are just that, and the Bill expressly relates to the Defence (Amendment) Act 1990. It states "without prejudice to the Defence (Amendment) Act 1990 and any regulations made thereunder, a member of the Permanent Defence Force shall not ...". In other words, it is without prejudice to that Act, which established the representative associations. Let us be clear that there is nothing stopping, no hindrance and no undermining of the role of the representative associations to represent their members. That is enshrined in legislation. This Bill is about creating the framework around an additional advance on the 1990 legislation, which is association with ICTU. That is what this is about, which is a good thing. They will now be involved in national wage negotiations and so on. That is a positive advance, through which each generation may advance even more.

I take Senator Clonan's point about the idea of freedom of expression and developing an intellectual tradition within our Defence Forces. That is something I would encourage. Within the Defence Forces, there is a strong learning tradition and dimension in terms of the various courses, programmes, postgraduate work and dissertations that members engage in. I had good experience with that last year when I went to the Curragh. Some of the studies people had been doing were outlined to me. A lot of them were in the military domain and some in the social domain, of mental health and mental well-being, and that whole area, which is of use to the formulation of military policy in the future. I am open to the idea of linking up with academic institutions. It seems to me that chain of command is involved here. This might be something I suggest we could return to in the context of other legislation. Cultural transformation is something I have been reflecting on for the past year and a half. There is the independent review group, and the work Senator Clonan did 20 years ago. I met seven or eight members of the external oversight body during the week to talk to them about their experiences. Senator Wilson made a good point last week about talking to the grassroots. They went to Collins Barracks and met approximately 100 randomly selected rank and file and engaged with them. Their biggest feedback was that there is still no belief on the ground that cultural transformation will occur. We have a huge challenge to convince people in the Defence Forces that cultural transformation will happen. What the Senator suggested today is an interesting dimension in terms of how we progress that. The chain of command structure lends itself to a rigidity that may not be conducive to that cultural transformation. That is a view I have but it needs to be thought through further. That is more within the structure of the Defence Forces itself.

Senator Wilson made a point about a member of a credit union.Again, a member of a credit union fills in a form and states his or her occupation. You do not say you are identifying yourself as a member of the Defence Forces to seek reform and attack the Government because of its financial policies; rather, you are a director outlining your occupations with a view to contributing to the community and being involved in it. Nothing changes in that respect. That is clear, in our view, and it has to be the position. We want community participation.

To me, the Defence Forces have always represented very significant human capital for the country. I see that when many members of the Defence Forces leave, they become very effective members of their communities in many organisations. Many have very good engineering, and organisational capacities, which have been deployed in the interest of community associations, community activities, projects, event organisation, and so on.