Why does Ireland need a military/army?

sandmanporto

Smcgie wrote: »

Someone has to put the sandbags down

comments like this that show up as a reply to a question like this makes the irish look like a frivolous bunch of fools.
to the point, every nation needs a defence. the miltary aided during the floods in cork so i guarantee you wouldn't slate the defence forces if we had a major crisis! the defence forces of ireland are on standby and if ireland ever has disaster due to war etc you won't see idiotic posts here slating their efforts.

Dyr

Manic Moran wrote: »

The sole function of the military is to do bad things to bad people.



NTM

dunno what it is with the american army and being judgmental.

AeoNGriM

It's them feckin snakes. They've been biding their time since St. Patrick fecked them out and they're only mad for a chance to get back in once our guard is down.

Mance Rayder

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

They and their ilk alone are a reason to keep an army as insurance against escalation.

I agree 100%

positron

Increase Army spending - may be they will stage a coup one day and we all will be saved!

Or go the Swiss model - a few professional militia, and rest would be citizen conscripts. Introduce 12 months mandatory national service (could be defense or other).

Dyr

positron wrote: »

Increase Army spending - may be they will stage a coup one day and we all will be saved!

Or go the Swiss model - a few professional militia, and rest would be citizen conscripts. Introduce 12 months mandatory national service (could be defense or other).

tbh with a country of irelands size, it would make sense to organise as a militia, historically, the governments of the country never really felt easy about giving the populace guns though :pac:

Manic Moran

Bambi wrote: »

dunno what it is with the american army and being judgmental.

It's any army. If you're down to using military force, your country obviously has very significant issues with the country or organisation you're going up against, even if it's not at the individual level of soldier to soldier. Destroying a leader's ability to wage war (or do anything else), for example, is a bad thing, from his perspective.

NTM

D1stant

bb1234567 wrote: »

The government is trying to find ways to cut back so why not scrap the army, I'm sure it costs a lot to run and maintain.We dont even have an airforce/submarines/missiles etc so its not like wed even be able to deal with a full on attack from another big country like England,Germany or China almost any country really, we'd be defeated within a day or two maybe less.

Nonsense. We would kick the sh1t out of the Vatican

aidan24326

CiscoStudent wrote: »

Our Labour party are communists, are you aware they have infiltrated our government?

They're a long way from being communists.

Manic Moran wrote: »

The sole function of the military is to do bad things to bad people.

If that were true not quite so many innocent people would get caught in the crossfire. The majority of people killed in any war are not 'bad' people.


And anybody saying we need the army we have for 'defence' purposes is delusional. If we were attacked or engaged in a war situation (which isn't likely) our army could do very little. They're hopelessly ill-equipped to do much if we were attacked by a more powerful nation.

They do a commendable job in other ways and I wouldn't deny that but suggesting they could protect us from a superior invader is nonsense. The likes of Britain/France/USA/China etc would wipe us out in a day or two. Thankfully for us there's no particular reason for any of them to want to do so.

johnr1

Explosions in the Sky wrote: »

This thread should be closed as should any of these threads that start up again, they are worse than "people on the dole are scumbags" and the "recession" threads :cool:

Why don't you point your gun at us and order us not to discuss how our money is spent while you're at it ? :rolleyes:

sara025

How about stop wasting so much money funding the FCA instead of getting rid of the PDF

Manic Moran

sara025 wrote: »

How about stop wasting so much money funding the FCA instead of getting rid of the PDF

Would you care to guess what proportion of the defense budget was accounted for by the FCA before it was turned into the RDF?

Here's a clue. The US Army is starting to downsize again to save costs. The proportion of reservists is increasing.

Batsy

Manic Moran wrote: »

Would you care to guess what proportion of the defense budget was accounted for by the FCA before it was turned into the RDF?

Here's a clue. The US Army is starting to downsize again to save costs. The proportion of reservists is increasing.

It's similar to Britain. The regular British Army is being shrunk to its smallest size since the 1850s. But what most people don't realise is that the TA - which is part of the British Army, not separate from it - is being increased in size. This means that by 2020, the British Army will consist of over 120,000 personnel (compared to 143,000 today), of which 84,000 will be regulars (compared to 110,000 today) and 38,000 TA (compared to 33,000 today), a ratio of 70/30. Under the "Forces Reform 2020" plan outlined by Defence Secretary Liam Fox on 18 July 2011, the Ministry of Defence will provide more money to train more TA soldiers with the objective of more frequently deploying entire TA units (much like U.S. National Guard units.) Currently only units of the Territorial Army Medical Services are deployed as formed units. This reform will bring the ratio of regular and part-time personnel of the British Army in-line with US and Canadian allies.

It's also interesting to note that Britain's Territorial Army alone is four times the size of the entire Irish Army, which has a strength of 8,500.

Nothingbetter2d

Sindri wrote: »

I can think of the financial incentive for scrapping the army but they are very useful.

Flooding - Send in the army.

Civil Unrest - Send in the army (to back up Gardaí for whatever purpose)

Explosives and explosive manufacturing facilities - The Army

Natural disaster - The Army


Fairly useful I think...

a damn site more useful than local politicans... we'd save more money scrapping all the local politicians and their expense accounts.

Capt'n Midnight

Manic Moran wrote: »

The sole function of the military is to do bad things to bad people.

All the other functions that the Army tends to do routinely can all be carried out by other organizations.

We need something like the US Army corps of engineers here for the big civil projects.

sara025

Manic Moran wrote: »

Would you care to guess what proportion of the defense budget was accounted for by the FCA before it was turned into the RDF?

Here's a clue. The US Army is starting to downsize again to save costs. The proportion of reservists is increasing.

The British Army and US Army actually utilise their reserve forces...

Fratton Fred

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

You need a LOT of ships
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_naval_forces_in_the_Falklands_War

included were
3 Ocean liners
8 Ferries
25 Tankers
7 Freighters
4 container ships

Today's Royal Navy has just 19 Destroyers and Frigates.
They sent 24 to the Falklands.


Argentina could have based more planes on the Islands if they had improved the runway at Stanley. Instead the jets had to come from the mainland and so didn't have much fuel for more than a very short time in the combat area.

[armchair]Having the fast jets operating from Stanley would have meant that the Argentinian Air Force would have been much more effective and this could have easily tipped the balance.[/armchair]

Worth pointing out though that a type 45 destroyer has air defence capabilities of six type 42s.

The landing craft are a step change better as well.

Slight gap in the ability to launch fighters though.....

OwenM

SafeSurfer wrote: »

This is another of those statements trotted out without any backup.

What do Irish citizens get for our money? Soldiers guarding cash in transit and soldiers marching in provincial towns on St. Patrick's Day.

Those soldiers on St. Patricks day are almost always unpaid reservists, not getting paid..... how's that for value for money.

Capt'n Midnight

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Worth pointing out though that a type 45 destroyer has air defence capabilities of six type 42s.

Type 45's cost nearer the price of a carrier than a type 42. They cost an awful lot more than keeping the existing aircraft capable ships.

It's got one 4.5" gun. The post war Darling class had six.
It's got a pair of 30mm guns, the Darling class had 6 40mm guns
The old Darling class also had torpedoes and depth charges.

"any ship can be a minesweeper, once" Germans built the best tanks in WWII, the T34 and Shermans weren't as good but they were close enough and more importantly there were over 40,000 of each against 10,000 Panthers/Tigers.

type 45 is very nearly a one trick pony, carriers can carry a lot of stuff in their hangers, http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/01/why-is-this-carriers-deck-packed-with-cars/



Weren't we to buy a container ship or RoRo for all the troop deployments to the Leb etc ?

dr.fuzzenstein

Batsy wrote: »

It's similar to Britain. The regular British Army is being shrunk to its smallest size since the 1850s. But what most people don't realise is that the TA - which is part of the British Army, not separate from it - is being increased in size.

Yeah, but it's the TA after all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no-m0Z3-KzU

The Irish army is hardly here to protect this island, which most countries could take over with their fire brigade by lunchtime.
More for peacekeeping duties overseas.
But experience has shown that taking over Ireland and holding on to it are two completely separate matters. Hence no worries from the Brits. They've had enough.:p

deirdreom

Do you all realise that an army guy on peace keeping in the lebonan gets 1200 euro per week! 600 euro if they are here, hanging around and 1200e there!!! and there are 8500 of them in the army....multiply that out!!! Unbelieveable - they dont have the man power to fix pot holes and they have it for a gun with no bullets in it!!!

deirdreom

Do you all realise that an army guy on peace keeping in the lebonan gets 1200 euro per week! 600 euro if they are here, hanging around and 1200e there!!! and there are 8500 of them in the army....multiply that out!!! Unbelieveable - they dont have the man power to fix pot holes and they have it for a gun with no bullets in it!!!

Nodin

deirdreom wrote: »

Do you all realise that an army guy on peace keeping in the lebonan gets 1200 euro per week! 600 euro if they are here, hanging around and 1200e there!!! and there are 8500 of them in the army....multiply that out!!! Unbelieveable - they dont have the man power to fix pot holes and they have it for a gun with no bullets in it!!!

.....Yep, the whole 8500 go over there all year, every year. Don't let the fact that UN pay the rest of that cash bother ye either.

deirdreom

stupid comment - sarcastic bastard.
Unless you actually believe that 8500 of them are in the leb! maybe you do.
Use your smarts! not your comments, that are meaningless

It wasn't me!

*headdesk* There are not 8,500 Irish soldiers currently deployed in Lebanon, no. Nor are there ever. That was sarcasm. The UN pays the extra, and as to guns being unloaded, don't know where you got that.

CarrickMcJoe

Why would they go to the Leb when they are still getting the border allowance even though theres no borders anymore.
Our army are pampersd, last year they were training in the Curragh but were sent home because it started snowing, they were also sent home from Leb I think because it was going to be too hot.

bitemybanger

deirdreom wrote: »

Do you all realise that an army guy on peace keeping in the lebonan gets 1200 euro per week! 600 euro if they are here, hanging around and 1200e there!!! and there are 8500 of them in the army....multiply that out!!! Unbelieveable - they dont have the man power to fix pot holes and they have it for a gun with no bullets in it!!!

Do you realise your "facts" are in fact.. not facts
You have no clue what you are on about.

SdoowSirhc

Richard Hillman wrote: »

To guard portlaoise prison from terrorists

The secure large amounts of cash transfers

To prevent any coup attempts

To restore law and order in case it gets out of the gardas control

To assist in humanitarian relief after a natural disaster

I'm sure there are many more reasons, that's just off the top of my head.

What group of people would actually want to be in charge of Ireland?:p

SdoowSirhc

deirdreom wrote: »

Do you all realise that an army guy on peace keeping in the lebonan gets 1200 euro per week! 600 euro if they are here, hanging around and 1200e there!!! and there are 8500 of them in the army....multiply that out!!! Unbelieveable - they dont have the man power to fix pot holes and they have it for a gun with no bullets in it!!!

OMG!!! Your exclaimation marks makes you an expert in military finance!!!

Nodin

deirdreom wrote: »

stupid comment -

Nope.

deirdreom wrote: »

sarcastic bastard.-

Yep, amongst other things.

Nodin

CarrickMcJoe wrote: »

Why would they go to the Leb when they are still getting the border allowance even though theres no borders anymore.
Our army are pampersd, last year they were training in the Curragh but were sent home because it started snowing, they were also sent home from Leb I think because it was going to be too hot.

I seem to have missed those stories. You wouldn't happen to have a source for them, by any chance?

marketty

Nodin wrote: »

I seem to have missed those stories. You wouldn't happen to have a source for them, by any chance?

he wouldn't have a source because he's full of ****e.
but the one I heard about them getting free socks is definitely true. :pac:

Milk & Honey

marketty wrote: »

he wouldn't have a source because he's full of ****e.
but the one I heard about them getting free socks is definitely true. :pac:

There are no free socks. Uniform socks are issued. Like most items or uniform they have a certain life before they are replaced. They have to be returned when new ones are issued or else paid for.

44leto

Originally Posted by CarrickMcJoe
Why would they go to the Leb when they are still getting the border allowance even though theres no borders anymore.
Our army are pampersd, last year they were training in the Curragh but were sent home because it started snowing, they were also sent home from Leb I think because it was going to be too hot

I do kind of believe that, its Europe's health and safety laws, I am not against this legislation but armies are also subjected to the legislation and why not, it is a place of employment, be it a different environment in peace and wartime. So if you have an exercise and a platoon is in a greater risk of slipping on their bollox breaking bones or injuring backs why not cancel it when the environment is at least a little safer, it is peace time.

I read a story about a Danish and French argument about a tower in some installation in Afghanistan, neither was equipped with the proper clothing and there was no heating, so they abandoned the tower. Also Clarkson wrote about wrote about British army vehicles which still had to pass the NCT equipotent while stationed in Afghanistan.

I like the war is becoming, hopilly soon the soldiers stationed in Afghanistan or any warzone will be able to sue the enemy for deafness or PTSS claims, bankrupting the victors, that would put a stop to wars and make everyone seek a peaceful solution in future conflicts.

Son Of A Vidic

deirdreom wrote: »

stupid comment - sarcastic bastard.
Unless you actually believe that 8500 of them are in the leb! maybe you do.
Use your smarts! not your comments, that are meaningless

3 Posts in a little over 4 years? Just as well I suppose going by that.

al28283

deirdreom wrote: »

Do you all realise that an army guy on peace keeping in the lebonan gets 1200 euro per week! 600 euro if they are here, hanging around and 1200e there!!! and there are 8500 of them in the army....multiply that out!!! Unbelieveable - they dont have the man power to fix pot holes and they have it for a gun with no bullets in it!!!

How much does no bullets cost?

Poccington

deirdreom wrote: »

Do you all realise that an army guy on peace keeping in the lebonan gets 1200 euro per week! 600 euro if they are here, hanging around and 1200e there!!! and there are 8500 of them in the army....multiply that out!!! Unbelieveable - they dont have the man power to fix pot holes and they have it for a gun with no bullets in it!!!

600 euro at home? I ****ing wish I was getting 600 quid a week into my bank account. I work with lads who are currently claiming FIS, I'll have to inform them that in reality they're pulling in the money.

Overseas Allowance isn't paid by the Government, it's paid for by the UN.

Fixing pot holes isn't out job. If you have a problem with pot holes, I'd suggest you contact the Local Authorities.

CarrickMcJoe wrote: »

Why would they go to the Leb when they are still getting the border allowance even though theres no borders anymore.
Our army are pampersd, last year they were training in the Curragh but were sent home because it started snowing, they were also sent home from Leb I think because it was going to be too hot.

The only people still getting Border Allowance are those who have been getting it for years upon years, the Government went to court about it and were told they couldn't take it off those troops as it was now considered part of their weekly pay. Any new troops in the past few years who've gone to a border unit don't recieve Border Allowance.

I've trained in the snow. I've been sent into rivers where I've had to break the ice as I moved through it. We're not pampered at all.

As for the Leb story... You're full of ****e. I could just imagine the Irish Batt CO going to the Force Commander of UNIFIL and saying "Sorry Sir but it's getting awfully warm out here so the whole Battalion is gonna pack up and we're heading home. Gimme a shout when it cools down a bit and we'll head home".

So many people talk utter ****e when it comes to the DF. It's unreal.

marketty

Milk & Honey wrote: »

There are no free socks. Uniform socks are issued. Like most items or uniform they have a certain life before they are replaced. They have to be returned when new ones are issued or else paid for.

I know that, I was taking the piss out of the other post!
As for the Leb getting too hot, they've obviously never heard of Chad

facemelter

bb1234567 wrote: »

The government is trying to find ways to cut back so why not scrap the army, I'm sure it costs a lot to run and maintain.We dont even have an airforce/submarines/missiles etc so its not like wed even be able to deal with a full on attack from another big country like England,Germany or China almost any country really, we'd be defeated within a day or two maybe less.
And since the IRA have given up their campaign we now have even less of a reason to retain an army. The only reason we need one is to help out with the UN, but we could pull out our army and maybe pull our weight by supplying the UN with a specialised garda force instead, that way we wouldnt need to maintain barracks around the country and that would be a better use of manpower and resources. I know we already have a problem with unemployment and this wont help, but maybe make the soldiers that didnt make into the specialised garda force for the UN normal gardai, we definitely do need a few more gardai patrolling our streets. That way unemployment wont go down but the government wont have to pay near as much to maintain an army thats of no use to us.

I know its only one small specialised section of the Army but the Eod does more than alot of people know !

Wicklowrider

CarrickMcJoe wrote: »

Why would they go to the Leb when they are still getting the border allowance even though theres no borders anymore.
Our army are pampersd, last year they were training in the Curragh but were sent home because it started snowing, they were also sent home from Leb I think because it was going to be too hot.

I spent a serious amount of time on the border through the late '70's & '80's and NEVER received a penny border allowance and nor did anyone I knew.

FGR

If anything I feel the DF needs more investment. Particularly when it comes to more ships for the Navy.

Topper7

Am I not right in saying that the the DF has suffered huge cutbacks before any other department? It is probably one of the most efficient departments especially when you consider it to the Dept of health (more senior managment than employees) or local goverment (where council workers are being sent to 'repair' roads with no tar, stones etc because the council cannot afford the extra expenditure). Granted they may not be able to hold off a major attack but they could at least buy time while waiting for help from other EU forces. And they provide services that any other organisation would struggle to supply to the same standard and at a reasonable cost (Bomb disposal, cash transfer, back up to fire brigade & ambulance service, engineering corp-who build and maintain bridges in different parts of the country). Other vital services from the air corps include marine patrol, S&R, patient/organ tranfare, etc. & the above are examples of services that the DF provide in this country and does not include all the humantarian & protection work they do abroad!

Criticise them all you want but you will be glad they are there if/when you need these men & women...