Is the Irish Army a good use of taxpayers money?

silverharp

I heard yesterday that there are 10,500 people in the Permanent Defence Force. My first thought was that’s a lot of people for a small country. I’m happy that the AirCorps and Navy provide a useful role not unlike the US Coast Guard but I do think they should be merged and called the Irish Coast Guard which in effect is what they are.. However how useful is the Army in its current structure, given the army deafness “scam” of recent years they are not exactly above reproach or scrutiny. I understand that we need an army of some sort but to have 1000’s of soldiers hold up like a bunch of monks waiting for something to happen doesn’t seem like a good use of resources or taxpayers money. Why do we even train soldiers to fire artillery for instance when there is no conceivable reason why this training should ever be used in reality. The 2 reasons why we should have an army is for anti-terrorism and civil defence purposes. If we decide to become part of a European force then fine, no objection to shouldering our share, as for UN commitments well I don’t see this as a strong enough reason to keep or setup an army in the first place.

It seems like for the same money we could have a better civil defence structure and more resources to fight terrorism and crime on this Island.

civdef

I’m happy that the AirCorps and Navy provide a useful role not unlike the US Coast Guard but I do think they should be merged and called the Irish Coast Guard which in effect is what they are..

Eh, the Irish Coastguard is the Irish Coastguard.

The 2 reasons why we should have an army is for anti-terrorism and civil defence purposes.

The Gardai are for anti-terrorism, the Civil Defence are for civil defence.

You seem a bit unclear as to the actual roles of the Defence Forces and other state entities.

bk

IMO from what I've seen, we get very good value for money from our Army.

Our Army is actually very small for our population size in comparison to other countries and we spend one of the smallest GDP amounts of any country in Europe on our military forces. Many would argue that our army is too small and under financed.

From what I've seen the Irish army command has done a great job with how little financing it has to build a very well trained, well equipped and very professional military force. Instead of trying to build a large, but untrained army like many countries, they seem to have strived to build a very small but well trained force that is well equipped for the type of duty they do.

You seem to think that they never leave base, this is simply not true, in the past up to 10% of the Army was on duty abroad in UN operations. They also participate around the world in joint training exercises and competitions with other military forces.

Here in Ireland they participate in a number of roles as aid to civilian power (Gardai), such as money protection, road blocks, anti-terrorism, etc.

silverharp

civdef wrote:

You seem a bit unclear as to the actual roles of the Defence Forces and other state entities.

Well I am unclear what the PDF does that couldn't be consolidated under the other agencies mentioned.
If their role is to support the other agencies it just seems like it is overegged.

civdef

The primary role of the Defence Forces is to defend the State against armed aggression. Which agency have you in mind for that one?

silverharp

civdef wrote:

The primary role of the Defence Forces is to defend the State against armed aggression. Which agency have you in mind for that one?

By whom exaclty? what possible events am I not aware of? if the UK or US (purely from a geographical perspective) then they wouldn't be fit for purpose, if some nighmare NI melt down or other internal distrubances then yes the Army. I'm not arguing that they should be disbanded, should are they the right "shape" for when we would need them. What possible scenario is there that a military force armed with tanks (small) and planes (slow) would attack this country

bk

That is the point, they can't really get any smaller. They are about the perfect "Shape" and size to deal with the types of threats we are likely to face:

1) Terrorists from Northern Ireland
2) Terrorists from abroad (Muslim Fanatics)
3) Civil unrest issues in Ireland

All in cooperation with the Gardai of course.

Only a few years ago, the Irish army was very heavily deployed along the NI border. Now fortunately things have calmed down up there, but there is no certainty that it won't start up again and that they will be needed there.

There are also a very handy force to have on hand if there was a natural disaster in Ireland.

I would understand and agree with what you are saying if the Irish army was buying things like main battle field tanks and attack helicopters, weapons unsuitable for such a small peaceful nation like Ireland. But they are not, instead they ensure that the men are well equipped, with excellent, world class encrypted communication equipment, very good and modern assault rifles, body armour etc. and vehicles like modern APC's and transport helicopters. All the type of equipment that a small army of a small peaceful nation should have to deal with the type of threats they are likely to face (lightly armed terrorist, civil unrest, etc).

BTW all the new APCs and helicopters that the army have recently bought, hasn't been funded by the exchequer, instead they bought them from the sales of unused Army bases.

zuma

Someone mentioned above that the Irish Army is too small....well its not actually:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Army wrote:

The New Zealand Army (or NZ Army) is the land armed force of the New Zealand military and comprises around 4,500 regular personnel and 2,500 non-regulars and civilians.

Population:
4,076,140 (July 2006 est.)
from CIA Factbook

Now I do realise that New Zealand is out in the middle of nowhere but unlike Ireland there is a very real possibility of a large war erupting in the region between China/Taiwan or N.Korea/S.Korea and Japan.

So honesty I see no reason why the Irish Army cant be downsized to ~6,000 with the extra money usd to buy better equipment for the smaller number of more professional soldiers.

When I was in the FCA I remember talking to a 3 Star in his late 40's!! and that was only around 5 years ago....this man would be considered the backbone of the Irish Army!!!

John_C

zuma wrote:

Now I do realise that New Zealand is out in the middle of nowhere but unlike Ireland there is a very real possibility of a large war erupting in the region between China/Taiwan or N.Korea/S.Korea and Japan.

Are you aware of how far from New Zealand these places are? I don't think that you've made a valid comparison.

banaman

But they are not, instead they ensure that the men are well equipped, with excellent, world class encrypted communication equipment.
If the army have it how come the Gardai are having to use mobile phones. Interesting priorities dont you think?

Sand

No, not really. Money would be better spent on an expanded coastguard, Gardai (possibly with some expanded paramilitary element) and an all out air-taxi service for Bertie & Co.

But its far to radical a step for our political leaders to take.

zuma

John_C wrote:

Are you aware of how far from New Zealand these places are? I don't think that you've made a valid comparison.

Which is exactly why they spend a good bit on their Naval Service.....remember they have 2 world class frigates...ANZAC class I think.

If they were not scared of problems in the area why do they have Offensive warships and Ireland has none?

What I am saying is that spending more on Irelands Naval service, if the military budget was kept static, instead of paying the wages of 2,000 troops in the Army that we can do without would be a good thing simply because we only have 8 or so patrol craft which is too little to patrol over half a million KM of Irish water from overfishing by all type of fishing vessels.

My view is that the Air Core should be scrapped and integrated properly into the Irish Army with the Naval Service integrated with the coast guard.
Cutting down bureaucracy can save a tonne of money, even the UK is seriously thinking of amalgimating the RAF into the Army and Navy!!!

bk

zuma wrote:

My view is that the Air Core should be scrapped and integrated properly into the Irish Army with the Naval Service integrated with the coast guard.
Cutting down bureaucracy can save a tonne of money, even the UK is seriously thinking of amalgimating the RAF into the Army and Navy!!!

The Air Core is already part of the Army and is about as slimmed down as you can get, there is very little to save their in terms of bureaucracy costs. In my opinion the Air Core needs to be beefed up, it is pretty sad that we depend so heavily on the RAF for our defence and search and rescue.

As for the Navy there would be little or no benefit in integrating them with the Coast Guard and some major distractions. The Coast Guard is actually a pretty small organisations, made up of a small number of professionals and a lose grouping of other groups including volunteers, the RNLI, etc. If you were to integrate the Navy with them, there would be little or no money saving, as the bureaucracy of the Navy would need to be maintained in order to manitain the service of the ships and necessary training as the coast guard certainly wouldn't have anything like the resources to take over this.

The disadvantage would be that at the moment the coast guard is seen as a purely non military organisation, with no enforcement powers and involved in purely search and rescue operations. If it took over policing and defence operations from the navy, it would damage it's reputation with the volunteers, RNLI and other civilian groups it would work with. It might get distracted from its mission of search and rescue, it's members would certainly be very upset, they signed up to rescue people, not police people (and would expect complete retraining and big pay increases) and finally it might cause vessels in distress, but involved in illegal activity to think twice about calling for help.

This would be a really bad idea.

It seems to me that some people just don't like us having any type of military force and want to see it desolved away. I don't see it that way, I think it is important to maintain a decent military force and that they do several great jobs even when not at war.

silverharp

bk wrote:

It seems to me that some people just don't like us having any type of military force and want to see it desolved away. I don't see it that way, I think it is important to maintain a decent military force and that they do several great jobs even when not at war.

I wouldn't put it like that, but when you have multiple agencies with overlapping roles then for a small country this doesn't seem effecient, in theory one could be rescued by the RNLI, Coast Guard, Navy or Air Corps, each one has its own administration etc etc.

I think the Navy, Air Corps and Coast Guard should be merged

WRT to the army, my reason for thinking about the post was hearing that the Army deafness claims were in excess of €300m. Now to contain any problens out of NI and gereral training in case of civil unrest or other emergencies no one should have needed to have their hearing severly impared unless they are training with Artillery or other large weapons which I would consider useless in an Irish context.

bk

silverharp wrote:

I wouldn't put it like that, but when you have multiple agencies with overlapping roles then for a small country this doesn't seem effecient, in theory one could be rescued by the RNLI, Coast Guard, Navy or Air Corps, each one has its own administration etc etc.

I think the Navy, Air Corps and Coast Guard should be merged

The administration costs are a fraction of the cost of purchasing and maintaining the ships and men. There would be little or no savings from integrating these services.

The Coast Guard is an extremely small service with very few full time personal, they simply would not have the resources to take over the management of the Navy, so if the Navy moved over to them, the entire Navy command structure and administration would also have to move over, therefore there would be NO savings and very likely big extra expense due to the move.

Plus there would be all the other problems I mentioned above with a civilian service becoming militarised. This is really a major issue and pretty much guarantees that this will never happen.

BTW the RNLI is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, it is the completely civilian, volunteer charity lifeboat rescue service that operates throughout the UK and Ireland. It works very closely with the Irish Coast Guard but it certainly couldn't be integrated with the coast guard like you think.

Also as I said already the Air Corps is already part of the Irish Army and shares most of it's administrative services with the Irish Army, so no money to be saved there either.

BTW Ireland spends 0.9% of GDP on the defence forces, that is very small. In comparison New Zealand spends 1%, UK 2.4%, US 4.06%, France 2.6%, Germany 1.5%, Switzerland 1%, etc.

civdef

Now to contain any problens out of NI and gereral training in case of civil unrest or other emergencies no one should have needed to have their hearing severly impared unless they are training with Artillery or other large weapons....

Most of the claims resulted from exposure to small-arms fire, exactly the sort of thing ATCP involves.

klash

zuma wrote:

Someone mentioned above that the Irish Army is too small....well its not actually:

Population:
4,076,140 (July 2006 est.)
from CIA Factbook

Now I do realise that New Zealand is out in the middle of nowhere but unlike Ireland there is a very real possibility of a large war erupting in the region between China/Taiwan or N.Korea/S.Korea and Japan.

So honesty I see no reason why the Irish Army cant be downsized to ~6,000 with the extra money usd to buy better equipment for the smaller number of more professional soldiers.

When I was in the FCA I remember talking to a 3 Star in his late 40's!! and that was only around 5 years ago....this man would be considered the backbone of the Irish Army!!!

I really don't think you realise how far New Zealand is from these possibly "hostile" countries.

No military plane from South Korea/China etc could ever hope to reach New Zealand. A force would need a aircraft carrier to attack them by air and China/south Korea don't have them.

m1ke

A private army (the IRA and other factions) has operated in our state for the last 30 years. I think that is justification enough for a decent sized army. Also we get very good value for money in terms of defence - as the UK, the US shoulder the financial costs for most of our problems (external security threats and NI security problems).

murphaph

I stand to be corrected on this but 'hostile' places like Liberia could see irish army encampments attacked by rebel forces with mortar fire etc. Artillery could be useful in defending such installations.

I think artillery training is more about gaining a decent knowledge of ballistics in any case, angle of inclination of the gun, prevailing weather conditions. I thinks it's a mainstay of ay army, even though you won't see much use for it these days.

I don't think we spend an excessive amount on our military. It's certainly too soon following 'peace' in NI to scale back based on that development alone. There are still subersive forces in this state who would seek it's destruction from within.

I think there are probably thousands of pen pusher jobs that could be axed from the civil service that would make more sense, though our civil service is quite lean by european standards tbh.

bk

For people who think we spend too much on our military, take a look at this page:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2034rank.html

Basically it ranks every country in the world on how much it spends on it's military as a percentage of GDP.

Ireland is way down in the bottom in 146th place (out of 167).

zuma

bk wrote:

For people who think we spend too much on our military, take a look at this page:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2034rank.html

Basically it ranks every country in the world on how much it spends on it's military as a percentage of GDP.

Ireland is way down in the bottom in 146th place (out of 167).

Which means what exactly?

Im pretty sure if we lived in a hostile area like central africa or similar we would spend more on our military as a % of GDP...but we dont and those tables don recognise such diversity!

1 Eritrea 17.70% 2005 est.

Need I say more?

I disagree

From the establishment of this state money has been ploughed away from the army into other immediate requirements to get the place onto a good footing. That mentality has stayed with the men who pays the bills ever since. The armed forces only get around one billion euro a year which keeps them ticking over. It is a small amount compared to what is spent on healthcare and rightly so.
There seems to be no need for a large armed force and we certainly don’t have one but Ireland has obligations to fulfil within the international community. We are seen as a force that will help maintain the peace, rebuild communities and not be motivated by any selfish colonial interests unlike a certain other UN member. The numbers in the army are not all infantry but other essential staff such as mechanics, engineers and office staff etc. who are required to keep the whole show on the road. I would disagree strongly with getting rid of any members of the professional army. If cutbacks are needed then trimming the reserve would be my first choice since the majority seem to be college students who are unlikely to be needed ever . The fact that a supposedly first class country has to rely on the RAF for search and rescue missions is a disgrace and since this is an important role it is of vital importance that we have our own independent services in this department.
If Ireland does go ahead with joining a European task force then we will be required by the EU to buff up the armed forces.

DublinWriter

€150 million on PPars
€60 million on E-Voting
€20K for Bertie's annual make-up bill.

Now call me simplistic, but...

bk

zuma wrote:

Which means what exactly?

Im pretty sure if we lived in a hostile area like central africa or similar we would spend more on our military as a % of GDP...but we dont and those tables don recognise such diversity!

Not just that we also spend the least of any EU15 country, EU25 Country or OECD country, many of which are neutral countries who are in fact far more neutral then us. Yet they all see a reason to maintain a decent military force.

My overall point is that we already have a very small military force and spending and if anything we should be looking to increase spending slightly to improve the equipment they use.

The Irish army is an excellent use of Tax payers money and we should be proud of the excellent job they do.

zuma

bk wrote:

Not just that we also spend the least of any EU15 country, EU25 Country or OECD country, many of which are neutral countries who are in fact far more neutral then us. Yet they all see a reason to maintain a decent military force.

My overall point is that we already have a very small military force and spending and if anything we should be looking to increase spending slightly to improve the equipment they use.

The Irish army is an excellent use of Tax payers money and we should be proud of the excellent job they do.

If we really were Neutral then we would spend a similar amount on our military to Switzerland and have compulsory conscription with a total Armed forces at least ~3 times their current size.

But we are NOT and NEVER have been Neutral.....we just couldnt take either side in WW2 due to political(Allies) and moral(Axis) reasons.
Our Neutrality then stemmed from the Emergency leading us to our current problems!.....and all theat Triple lock bullshít(China gets the right to veto irish soldiers!)

What you must understand is that politicians are NOT going to increase military spending, unless there is a damn good reason for doing so!

Excellent use of Taxes, god no, but money which must be spent to countermine Terrorist activities and such.
Before anyone gets bitchy with me I did spend 3 years in the FCA(RDF) and many of the people I served with later joined the Irish and British(after Sierra Leone one transferred to the Irish) Army.

civdef

The fact that a supposedly first class country has to rely on the RAF for search and rescue missions is a disgrace and since this is an important role it is of vital importance that we have our own independent services in this department.

You're only about a decade or so behind the times, but nevermind.

bk

Thanks Zuma I know all that, that is why I said:
"neutral countries who are in fact far more neutral then us."

Sleepy

The only area I'd cut back spending on (to zero) would be the air corps ministerial transport function. If Tony Blair can fly BA, Bertie Ahern can fly Aer Lingus/Aer Aran/Ryanair. Would like to see the savings from this pumped into the Search & Rescue wing or our coastal defence.

Trotter

silverharp wrote:

However how useful is the Army in its current structure, given the army deafness “scam” of recent years they are not exactly above reproach or scrutiny.

I know two people who are ex-army. They got small amounts in the deafness "scam" you mention. One is almost fully deaf in one ear now and the other wears a hearing aid. If you were in the army and this happened, would you be happy to walk around deaf and not look for any compensation? Yes there were people who took advantage but everyone who got compensation was tested by doctors to see if they had actually lost hearing.

silverharp wrote:

Why do we even train soldiers to fire artillery for instance when there is no conceivable reason why this training should ever be used in reality.

Spend six months in Liberia or Kosovo / Lebanaon when things were bad and then say you dont need to know anything about artillery.


I am so tired of the ill informed, anti army sentiment in this country from people who have NO clue what the army do. There are not 1000's of soldiers wandering around doing nothing. They are guarding prisons, money escorts, training for UN missions etc. Some of the civilian BS that I hear really annoys me.

civdef

Would like to see the savings from this pumped into the Search & Rescue wing or our coastal defence.

There isn't a search and rescue wing, Irish Coastguard are the SAR people these days, and coastal defence went out of fashion sometime in the 1940's.

therecklessone

Sleepy wrote:

The only area I'd cut back spending on (to zero) would be the air corps ministerial transport function. If Tony Blair can fly BA, Bertie Ahern can fly Aer Lingus/Aer Aran/Ryanair.

Someone's not been reading the news. Google "Blair Force One".