Tag: Irish defence policy

We must base Irish Defence Policy on debate, not caprice

by dsmooney, posted in Defence, Fianna Fáil, Micheal Martin, Tanaiste, Taoiseach, Triple Lock, United Nations

In this week’s column I return to a topic I have discussed many times over the years – Irish Defence. Though there are some signs that things may be about to improve, the pace is no where near fast enough. The Minister responsible is more pre-occupied with positioning and messaging, than on tackling the real problems. We see this in his hands off approach to the current Defence Bill. You can also listen to the accompanying Podcast, it also includes a short review of Eamon Ryan’s leader’s address at last weekend’s Green Party conference. 

It’s deeply frustrating to tune in to TV or Radio debate on Ireland’s traditional policy of military neutrality and the Triple Lock and then hear the case for both being argued by people who seem far more interested in criticising the U.S. or the E.U. or the very concept of military defence.

Take last Wednesday’s Tonight Show on Virgin Media TV. On the panel were Deputies Dr Cathal Berry and Mick Barry and Dr Karen Devine. While the producers may have anticipated that Dr Devine and Deputy Barry would be making the case for military neutrality and the retention of the Triple Lock (and I accept the risk of using these two phrases as if they were interchangeable) I heard precious little from either one on the actual case for both.

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Irish Defence Policy – the sleeping dog that’s no longer content to stay asleep

by dsmooney, posted in Cyber security, Defence, Eamon Ryan, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Micheal Martin, Simon Coveney, Taoiseach

This column first appeared on Broadsheet on Monday, January 31st with the much snappier title: Indefensible. In it, I explain how a decade of political neglect of both defence policy and the Defence Forces is coming back to haunt the government. Sadly, the comments of An Taoiseach and of Ministers Coveney and Ryan point to them having beither the ideas or the political will to undo the damage of thar decade of neglect. 

Active Measures – Russia’s Ambassador to Ireland, Yury Filatov. Pic via SASKO LAZAROV/ROLLINGNEWS.IE

After a decade of defence issues being pushed so far down the political agenda that you’d need a bathysphere and a decompression chamber to even spot them, they came roaring back up that agenda this week. With a vengeance.

Each day brought a new story. It started with the concern over the build up of Russian forces on the Ukrainian border and the not unconnected tumult over Russia’s plans to mount naval exercises in Ireland’s exclusive economic zone.

It then continued with the policy-making-on-the-hoof announcement by Taoiseach Micheál Martin and the Communications Minister Eamon Ryan that they plan to come up a plan to close Cathal Brugha barracks and use it for housing.

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No defence of defence relationships

by dsmooney, posted in Defence, Enda Kenny, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin, Simon Coveney, Tanaiste, Taoiseach

This article first appeared on Broadsheet dot i e on February 22nd and considers the political dimension to the reported breakdown in relationships between senior management in the Department of Defence and the Irish Defence Forces. I establish that the problem has nothing to do with personalities, but rather the structural relations between the two leaderships and the perception that the Department of Defence is not championing the cause of the Defence Forces within government, most particularly with the Department of Finance. But that is impossible to do without a committed minister at cabinet with political clout. A minister who puts Defence first, not second.

A few months after I started working as the special adviser in the Department of Defence, Gerry Hickey, the late and much missed programme manager to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, phoned me to check on some departmental facts and figures for the annual Programme for Government review.

“…and roughly how many civil servants work in the Department of Defence”, he enquired.

“From what I can tell… about half of them”, I acerbically responded.

There was an exasperated silence at the other end of the line.  Not for the first time my knack for being smart-assed at the wrong moment was backfiring.  

“What was that?” he asked.

Luckily, I had the number to hand as there had been a parliamentary question on that topic a week or two before. From memory there were about 380 individual civil servants, but as some were on job sharing schemes this was roughly equal to 360 whole-time equivalents.  

My wise-guy answer was unnecessarily facetious. Almost all the department officials I encountered during in my time in defence were hard-working and professional. This is across the department, not just those on the policy side, who I encountered most frequently, but also the junior and mid-ranking officials who made the defence establishment work efficiently, such as those in the pay and pensions branches.

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A Coach and Horses to shift the hapless Minister Kehoe

by dsmooney, posted in Dáil, Defence, Enda Kenny, Leo Varadkar, Politics

This article appeared first on Broadsheet.ie on July 9th 2019. It again looks at the problems faced, caused and posed by the hapless Junior Minister for Defence 

A few weeks back I discovered online that one of my favourite London pubs, the Coach and Horses on Greek Street in Soho is about to change hands. The pub is both iconic and historic – and not just because I’ve been swigging pints there on visits to London since the early 1980s.

It has been the watering hole of Dylan Thomas, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Louis MacNeice, Graham Greene and countless other journos, actors, artists and Bohemian hangers-on. The pub is just across the street from the offices of the British satirical magazine, Private Eye, and has hosted many of the Eye’s infamous off-the-record lunches in an upstairs private dining room.

The design and layout of the main bar was immortalised as the set for the play based loosely on the life of one of its most infamous denizens, the notoriously unsober Spectator and Sporting Life humourist, diarist and columnist, Jeffrey Bernard.

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