Abolition of the Dept. of Defence?

Avgas

I'm just wondering what various people who lurk here feel about the news that the Irish Dept. of Defence will no longer be a full and separate ministry....but has been merged with the Department of Justice and Equality...it would be like merging the MoD with the Home Office...in a UK context.....but obviously the scale is different........

My own 2 cents.....

(a) This could be permanent........a stand alone DoD may not re-emerge....
(b) Maybe it will give the civil servants in Parkgate st, a freer hand as the minister (Alan Shatter FG) will be so busy looking after the courts, the Gardai, and equality...how much time will he have to mull over the vital importance of PE instruction for the RDF? BUT is this good or bad news though?

Any thoughts for those who feel able to comment (sensibly)?

BrianD

Not sure if it is necessary a bad thing. The UK has a huge military so a minister makes sense. Ours is small and essentially an aid to civil power.

The new title should reflect both justice and defence.

Mind you there are other countries in the news where justice and the army come under the one umbrella!!

Morpheus

They split the dept of finance in two and joined the dept of defence and justice into one!!! madness in my opinion.

Poccington

We'll never see a seperate DoD in this country again.

It's either gonna work out ok, or go very, very badly for the DF.

Morpheus

interesting point here:

The Department of Defence ceased to have its own minister for the first time in the State's history yesterday. It will continue to exist as a separate department but will be run by Justice and Defence Minister Alan Shatter.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/rights-poll-will-be-key-task-of-childrens-minister-2573654.html

so its still a seperate atomic department but shares a minister.... simply a cost cutting exercise at ministerial level to reduce the number of ministers bums on seats in the dail and maintain a cheaper cabinet??

Manic Moran

Is there not precedent for this a few years ago? I seem to recall a few years ago defense and another department bring run by the Minister for Fish and Ships.

NTM

Yitzhak Rabin

Its bad news for the DF.

It means the civil servants have much more power.

That means decisions on barrack closures, 2 brigade structure, further reductions in personnel in equipment etc. are left with the civvies who are in favour of these things.

They've also been looking to Civilianise some appointments to free up personnel - Read: Your Adjutant/ Ops Sgt / BQ may now be some 50 year old woman whos worked in the DoD doing squat for the last 25 years. It means the bloated dept save their jobs while they reduce the number of soldiers.

At least in the past when the minister was making these kind of decisions he didn't want 10,000 pissed off voters, who pretty much all vote.

Avgas

yekahS wrote: »

Its bad news for the DF.

It means the civil servants have much more power.

That means decisions on barrack closures, 2 brigade structure, further reductions in personnel in equipment etc. are left with the civvies who are in favour of these things.

I wonder is it such bad news? Yes, in general giving civil servants a freer hand in Defence is bad because the culture since 1924 has been 'sit on the army'.....BUT we do actually NEED to reduce the number of poxy barracks...Mullingar.....Kilkenny....I mean come on......they should be phased out/wound down in some reasonable way that doesn't treat people like dirt.....nothing will happen because of the property market and it would cost too much to relocated people.......but we do not need so many barracks......also a resourced 2xbattlegroup structure would make more sense never mind 2 brigades or the 3 bde fiction......

SIRREX

yekahS wrote: »

Your Adjutant/ Ops Sgt / BQ may now be some 50 year old woman whos worked in the DoD doing squat for the last 25 years. It means the bloated dept save their jobs while they reduce the number of soldiers.

This will never happen, for 2 reasons. It would disrupt the promotion structure of the officer Corp, and this has been well protected by successive governments with officer numbers remaining unchanged while overall figures drop. And more importantly no civilian has the authority to give a Soldier a direct order(the missus excepted). The Minister gives the orders to the Chief who passes it down the chain of command