Should Ireland have a better equipped Navy and Air Force?

Morpheus

I think the elephant in the gun cage is this one common concept amongst all the lefties, nay sayers and those ignorant of the defence forces or just plain old anti military......

Sure the brits or nato will save us - we dont need an army.

This combined with the MIS understanding the same groups have about Irish so called Neutrality - has to be the saddest and dumbest concept embedded in Irish society today. It abso - f**king - lutely breaks my heart when I read this.

to the uneducated masses - please for the love of God and all things Irish, have some pride and patriotism.

Dept Of Health budget estimate for 2014 13.3 BILLION euro
Dept of Defence 890 MILLION euro

Look, for a FRACTION of the cost of running the entire Dept of Health for UNDER 1 month you have a very capable organisation which manages to
mobilise 12000 personnel (including reserves)
operate just under 800 of these overseas,
fly the 26 state aircraft and
patrol and protect one of the largest EEZ's in the western world with only (currently) 7 Vessels.

When you realise that the logistics trail of ANY modern army is that for every 4 soldiers, 3 are required to work on logistics so that 1 can fight on the front line. so for ireland to maintain 800 overseas,
we have a minimum of 2400 working behind them.

Factor in another (up to) 800 training to go on the next overseas missions
probably another logistics tail of 2400 although im sure some of that is shared between those overseas and those training to go.

Then there are
career courses,
recruitment,
skills courses,
army ranger wing,
EOD engineers,
CIS,
medical corps,
military police,
Vehicle Maintenance
Weapons maintenance
procurement
research and development
training overseas with other military units
those doing university courses
apprenticeships
those involved with Running the reserve units
then all of the above for the navy
then all of the above (bar reserves) for the air corps
duties,
then you have your CIT, explosives convoys etc
and yes portlaoise prison and the rest

I could go on but do I really need to?

I **** you not when I tell you that the numbers in the Defence Forces are absolutely at the bare bare bones minimum thats required to simply MAINTAIN what we have. The roles and job expectations are constantly being expanded and the numbers are being shaven down, this goes right across the board. All through the BOOM we were asked to do more with less, then the crash and now I tell you that its at a threshold, beyond which we are most likely talking a catastrophic implosion and eternal loss of skills expertise and indigenous capabilities and one thing you learn working in the defence forces, is that once something - a piece of equipment, or expertise in an area, is taken away from you, regardless of the promises etc, you will never ever get it back no matter how badly it is needed.

The DOD is the leanest meanest most efficient department serving the state today BY FAR. you would do well to take their model of efficiency and ram it down the greedy gullets of the depts of social protection, health, justice, agriculture, etc. The amount of money that COULD be saved would have a large figure with many MANY zeroes after it.

But then the DOD is an easy target...
where else in the public sector, will you find 12000 workers, totally unprotected by unions, who have no option, but to bend over and take it up the ass whenever you decide to force cutbacks on them and even then, they STILL face up to that challenge, and no matter how much it hurts, they will still do it with dignity and pride and 100% professionalism, knowing that people like you will just never understand and will just continue to stand on the soap box and declare that the army does nothing and therefore it should be disbanded when the truth is that they tend to be one of the most diligent, hard working, never praised groups you are likely to meet on this island or beyond.

[MOD]Roadsmart Your questions have been more than answered, either add to the debate or exit it.[/MOD]

Hedgemeister

Well said Morpheus and there's very little I can add to the above.
However, (and I do not include the above posters) we will sadly see lots more posts about 'why do we need an Army' etc etc between now and 2016. There are those busy at work in this country, and indeed beyond, who would undermine the worth of our Army in the eyes of the people, and, if they can at all, destroy the morale of the troops...even 'dehumanise' them for their own ends.

In these times, when the other 'pillars of the State' ie (the Church and the Gardai)are busy ****ing themselves up, all that prevents an open goal for certain vested interests are the Army. If they can be undermined...well...we would certainly live in interesting times...

I'm old enough to remember when the **** hit the fan in Sept 1969 when troops were ordered to the Border...to a place called Camp Arrow...(a bare field with absolutely no facilities) Twenty one Trucks departed Collins Barracks in Cork for the Border, and only two vehicles reached Fermoy, The remainder broke down because they were after all, antiques.
As a Nation we never valued our Army nor valued those who serve, or those that served. But...when some Unionised body like CIE or even the Fire Service decide to flex their union muscles, our biggest detractors will be first to cry 'where's the Army.'

riffmongous

Is anyone familiar with the system used by Iceland? From some quick reading on them they maintain no standing army, spend 0.1% of GDP on defence but have an EOD unit and a large area of waters to patrol with their coastguard. They also deploy a small group of specialists abroad on missions as part of NATO and UN operations.

Jawgap

riffmongous wrote: »

Is anyone familiar with the system used by Iceland? From some quick reading on them they maintain no standing army, spend 0.1% of GDP on defence but have an EOD unit and a large area of waters to patrol with their coastguard. They also deploy a small group of specialists abroad on missions as part of NATO and UN operations.

Are the Americans still there at Keflavik?

riffmongous

Jawgap wrote: »

Are the Americans still there at Keflavik?

Not since 2006

linky

Morpheus

riffmongous wrote: »

Not since 2006

linky

irrelevant to the discussion other than as passing comment....
why?
they are a member of nato
have defence treaties with united states, norway, denmark
they spend 0.5% of gdp
they have the Icelandic Air Policing agreement which sees state of the art fighter aircraft patrol its airspace
a national population 1/3 times the size of that in dublin city
etc

riffmongous

Morpheus wrote: »

irrelevant to the discussion other than as passing comment....

geographically Iceland is a similar position to us and manages to fulfill its goals with less cost. That's the basic premise, I think the other factors that are different are worth discussing to see if it would be applicable to Ireland.

why?
they are a member of nato
have defence treaties with united states, norway, denmark
they spend 0.5% of gdp
they have the Icelandic Air Policing agreement which sees state of the art fighter aircraft patrol its airspace
a national population 1/3 times the size of that in dublin city
etc

Well their model seems to work for them, at a low cost they can participate in international missions and protect their territory (The figures I found are closer to 0.1% of GDP https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ic.html).

We can also avail of defensive treaties as a part of the EU no?

Population sure is important, but in terms of area at sea they have at least as much to patrol as the Irish navy

Xios

riffmongous wrote: »

Is anyone familiar with the system used by Iceland? From some quick reading on them they maintain no standing army, spend 0.1% of GDP on defence but have an EOD unit and a large area of waters to patrol with their coastguard. They also deploy a small group of specialists abroad on missions as part of NATO and UN operations.

I think its quite relevant to point out that Iceland only has a population of 320,000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland
Comparable to the poplulation of County Galway and County Mayo combined. So i think the comparison is pointless to be honest.

riffmongous

Xios wrote: »

I think its quite relevant to point out that Iceland only has a population of 320,000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland
Comparable to the poplulation of County Galway and County Mayo combined. So i think the comparison is pointless to be honest.

Fair enough, but still a better comparison to Ireland than Costa Rica and Panama who have similar populations to Ireland but not a lot else in common.

View Profile

Denmark has a slightly larger population than Ireland yet operates 30 F16 fighters, 4 Hercules C130, as well as over 50 naval ships of which 12 are over 1,500t.

Thats a decent comparisson!

roadsmart

Jawgap wrote: »

Look regardless of whether they should or shouldn't the point was made they don't have a domestic role when it is quite clear that they do.

No, that point wasn't made, that question was asked, and out of genuine curiosity, but it seems to have gotten certain backs up and you in particular reacted with frankly pathetic attempts at sarcasm. Surprisingly when you did answer as a normal person would you made some valid points which gave food for thought, but unfortunately you then decided to revert to form.

Morpheus wrote: »

I think the elephant in the gun cage is this one common concept amongst all the lefties, nay sayers and those ignorant of the defence forces or just plain old anti military......

Sure the brits or nato will save us - we dont need an army.

This combined with the MIS understanding the same groups have about Irish so called Neutrality - has to be the saddest and dumbest concept embedded in Irish society today. It abso - f**king - lutely breaks my heart when I read this.

to the uneducated masses - please for the love of God and all things Irish, have some pride and patriotism.

Dept Of Health budget estimate for 2014 13.3 BILLION euro
Dept of Defence 890 MILLION euro

Look, for a FRACTION of the cost of running the entire Dept of Health for UNDER 1 month you have a very capable organisation which manages to
mobilise 12000 personnel (including reserves)
operate just under 800 of these overseas,
fly the 26 state aircraft and
patrol and protect one of the largest EEZ's in the western world with only (currently) 7 Vessels.

When you realise that the logistics trail of ANY modern army is that for every 4 soldiers, 3 are required to work on logistics so that 1 can fight on the front line. so for ireland to maintain 800 overseas,
we have a minimum of 2400 working behind them.

Factor in another (up to) 800 training to go on the next overseas missions
probably another logistics tail of 2400 although im sure some of that is shared between those overseas and those training to go.

Then there are
career courses,
recruitment,
skills courses,
army ranger wing,
EOD engineers,
CIS,
medical corps,
military police,
Vehicle Maintenance
Weapons maintenance
procurement
research and development
training overseas with other military units
those doing university courses
apprenticeships
those involved with Running the reserve units
then all of the above for the navy
then all of the above (bar reserves) for the air corps
duties,
then you have your CIT, explosives convoys etc
and yes portlaoise prison and the rest

I could go on but do I really need to?

I **** you not when I tell you that the numbers in the Defence Forces are absolutely at the bare bare bones minimum thats required to simply MAINTAIN what we have. The roles and job expectations are constantly being expanded and the numbers are being shaven down, this goes right across the board. All through the BOOM we were asked to do more with less, then the crash and now I tell you that its at a threshold, beyond which we are most likely talking a catastrophic implosion and eternal loss of skills expertise and indigenous capabilities and one thing you learn working in the defence forces, is that once something - a piece of equipment, or expertise in an area, is taken away from you, regardless of the promises etc, you will never ever get it back no matter how badly it is needed.

The DOD is the leanest meanest most efficient department serving the state today BY FAR. you would do well to take their model of efficiency and ram it down the greedy gullets of the depts of social protection, health, justice, agriculture, etc. The amount of money that COULD be saved would have a large figure with many MANY zeroes after it.

But then the DOD is an easy target...
where else in the public sector, will you find 12000 workers, totally unprotected by unions, who have no option, but to bend over and take it up the ass whenever you decide to force cutbacks on them and even then, they STILL face up to that challenge, and no matter how much it hurts, they will still do it with dignity and pride and 100% professionalism, knowing that people like you will just never understand and will just continue to stand on the soap box and declare that the army does nothing and therefore it should be disbanded when the truth is that they tend to be one of the most diligent, hard working, never praised groups you are likely to meet on this island or beyond.

Roadsmart Your questions have been more than answered, either add to the debate or exit it.

Again, here is a poster who made some very salient points but then mars them by insulting anyone who dares to have a different opinion or asks a question. I said at the start I know nothing of the defence forces, which is why I asked my question in a forum where people with experience could perhaps enlighten me. I asked a genuine question, and I didn't expect to be ridiculed for it and ordered off the forum by a moderator, an action by the way which questions your ability to moderate fairly. I'll withdraw from this thread and ask my question elsewhere, hopefully someone with a vested interest but a more level outlook will take the question for what it was and not perceive it as a lefty attack on their little world. You do yourselves no favours.

source

View Profile wrote: »

Denmark has a slightly larger population than Ireland yet operates 30 F16 fighters, 4 Hercules C130, as well as over 50 naval ships of which 12 are over 1,500t.

Thats a decent comparisson!

Yup and their defence budget is over €3bn that's more than 3 times the Irish defence budget.

Morpheus

roadsmart wrote: »

Again, here is a poster who made some very salient points but then mars them by insulting anyone who dares to have a different opinion or asks a question. I said at the start I know nothing of the defence forces, which is why I asked my question in a forum where people with experience could perhaps enlighten me. I asked a genuine question, and I didn't expect to be ridiculed for it and ordered off the forum by a moderator, an action by the way which questions your ability to moderate fairly. I'll withdraw from this thread and ask my question elsewhere, hopefully someone with a vested interest but a more level outlook will take the question for what it was and not perceive it as a lefty attack on their little world. You do yourselves no favours.

Dear roadsmart.....

Bearing in mind, you say you know nothing about the defence forces, but you make comments such as

QUESTION #66

We have no need of an army but fishing incursions and drug activity need to be policed.

-- so you know about the army and have decided we dont need one?

#70

I'm not sure of the cost of our army, but surely it's wasted money, as they don't have much of a role domestically.

in your reply you apparently now know about the domestic role and have decided they dont have one?

#73

I'm genuinely curious as to why we have a huge cost of an army when it seems to me that there really is no need for one

so you now 3 posts later you have learned about how much it costs to run the army? because in post 70 you said youre not sure of the cost and now in your opinion the cost is apparently huge?

#74

That's probably another thread altogether, but I think air patrols would have to feature highly.

Are you a maritime expert? do you know the difference between maritime air and maritime sea patrolling? the weather in the northern atlantic and its effect on aircraft? the limitations of aircraft available for the MAP role and range or how long they can remain on station or how effective their radar and sensor suites are in comparison to vessels in the water?

#77

I'm sure a much, much smaller part time organisation could do the same thing.
I'm not sure what it costs to run our army, but the defence budget for 2013 was 901 million euro. Given that the army is by far the biggest group, let's conservatively say their spend was 500 million. IMO that would be far better spent elsewhere rather than on employing a huge group of people with very little gain for the country. Like, what do they actually do?

here you make assumptions about how much the army costs and yet got the defence budget wrong for 2013, it was €895,244,000

Frankly you are not debating the issues, but you keep repeating your comment about how we dont need the army. I think I made a fair point, either add to the debate or stop repeating that we dont need an army. how about you back up "we dont need the army" with some valid opinions and some concrete evidence after you have discussed and thus learned what we do. I dont want to make people unwelcome in military but you kicked the door down and repeated the same comment over and over

We have no need of an army

I'm not sure of the cost of our army, but surely it's wasted money

I'm genuinely curious as to why we have a huge cost of an army when it seems to me that there really is no need for one

Given that the army is by far the biggest group, let's conservatively say their spend was 500 million. IMO that would be far better spent elsewhere rather than on employing a huge group of people with very little gain for the country. Like, what do they actually do?

So you will have to forgive me, yes, a moderator, for being a little heavy with my reply, (have you read the forums charter by the way?) but you keep repeating the same comment and are not in my opinion adding to the debate so I think that I have made a fair point.

Other posters here have a differing point of view to me but I have not addressed them as they are trying to debate their opinions and issues. Please do the same, you are welcome here, im well aware that you are new to this area of boards. but if you keep up with nonsensical comments and nothing to back them up, then eventually you will ruffle feathers. I had spent quite some time collating my reply to you in order to be informative, the final comment was as a moderator only and I did not ask you to leave the forum, i said add to the debate or exit it - i was referring to this thread, there is no point posting if you are not making a point, if I wanted to ask you to leave the forum it would be done through MOD channels and not publicly, ive fixed the overall comment so it reflects the mod comment..

I asked a genuine question, and I didn't expect to be ridiculed for it and ordered off the forum by a moderator, an action by the way which questions your ability to moderate fairly

[MOD]
A final point if you will... nothing to do with the above by the way, this goes for all posters, moderating is not an easy job, it takes time out of my day to do and can be sticky work at times. considering that, if anyone has any issues with any Mods moderating, please feel free to use the correct channels to report it rather than questioning their ability publicly. I could have infracted you but as a newbie here, I will instead ask you to please re-read the charter and then add to the debate.
Happy posting[/MOD]

roadsmart

Up to now I held the opinion (in my lack of knowledge, as already stated) that the army do nothing domestically. It's an opinion, just as valid as yours. I asked what do they do, and was met with what seems to be the "circle the wagons" mentality, which certainly didn't clarify anything. In answer to other posters I re-stated my opinion several times. Where does it say I can't answer another poster?
As for the fairness of your moderation, your "lefty" post certainly questions that, and as far as I am aware I am allowed to form an opinion about it.

With regard to your veiled threat of infractions/bans, I really don't see on what basis you could do so but hey, work away if it makes you feel better, it won't bother me. It will however show to any future posters the futility of asking a question here and expecting a proper answer, especially from one entrusted to moderate it. From the form already shown here I can't expect proper debate anymore on the subject, so good luck.

riffmongous

View Profile wrote: »

Denmark has a slightly larger population than Ireland yet operates 30 F16 fighters, 4 Hercules C130, as well as over 50 naval ships of which 12 are over 1,500t.

Thats a decent comparisson!

Denmark would have been frontline NATO until relatively recently though.

I'll give you another different comparison, the country where I live myself. Austria spends ~2 billion€ and has a number of Eurofighters (that wasn't without it's own controversy though), main battle tanks and actually still has conscription while maintaining a policy of neutrality. But you can tell it's a completely different situation here in the middle of Europe with the former yugoslav republics to the south and the increasingly right wing Hungary to the east compared to being tucked away on the west coast behind the UK. I'm not against military spending, I'd just like to see good reasons for it in the case of Ireland where money is in short supply.

aindriu80

13 billion on health and 1 billion on defence. Cutting the defence budget any more doesn't make a whole pile of sense. If you were to add another 1 billion on to health and scrap defence altogether I don't really think there would be any improvement in health service in Ireland.

I know we don't have the cash but increasing the defence budget provides jobs that a lot of Irish people can obtain. Coupled with new equipment and training (both military and academic) I don't know we haven't chased a proper defence policy to date.

sparky42

aindriu80 wrote: »

13 billion on health and 1 billion on defence. Cutting the defence budget any more doesn't make a whole pile of sense. If you were to add another 1 billion on to health and scrap defence altogether I don't really think there would be any improvement in health service in Ireland.

I know we don't have the cash but increasing the defence budget provides jobs that a lot of Irish people can obtain. Coupled with new equipment and training (both military and academic) I don't know we haven't chased a proper defence policy to date.

While I agree that 1 billion extra into health isn't going to change anything (at this stage I doubt 1 trillion into health would change anything). Let's be fair the nature of the hath service means that a significant amount of money remains within the Irish system (health is the single largest employer, and purchasing department in the country).

An increase in defence spending would mean an increase in money outflows (either in new ships, mowags, planes etc). Please don't tell me you are going to start up with the old lets build it ourselves routine?

We do need more ships to patrol the eez, more helicopters would be handy to, but I don't see the call for enlarging the army given it's current operations and the fact that the Irish position isn't going to change (and if the current impasse between Russia and the west continues there's the possibility that the Triple waste of time will impact UN deployments if the security council start vetoing each other).

Morpheus

Good point about the triple lock

now would be a good time to garner public support for withdrawing from the UN bit.

Why have a country like Russia dictating as to where we can send our troops?

Xios

riffmongous wrote: »

Denmark would have been frontline NATO until relatively recently though.

I'll give you another different comparison, the country where I live myself. Austria spends ~2 billion€ and has a number of Eurofighters (that wasn't without it's own controversy though), main battle tanks and actually still has conscription while maintaining a policy of neutrality. But you can tell it's a completely different situation here in the middle of Europe with the former yugoslav republics to the south and the increasingly right wing Hungary to the east compared to being tucked away on the west coast behind the UK. I'm not against military spending, I'd just like to see good reasons for it in the case of Ireland where money is in short supply.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Armed_Forces
I didn't find it with a quick google search, so i'll ask you, what's the average salary for an Austrian soldier?

It seems Austria has a far larger military force
"Active personnel 29,533 (12,000 conscripts)
Reserve personnel 27,000"
For only twice the Irish budget. In saying that, Austria does not have a Navy. Also, Austria was on the forefront of the Cold war and has centuries of military history and experience to fall back on. I'm sure decades of investment into the military has payed dividends and allowed the nation keep a large standing force.

After thinking about it a little, Comparing the military capabilities of the Irish Defence Forces on a cost/benefit ratio with other nations seems to be a moot point to me. Ireland isn't even a century old yet, our military is only 90 this year. Our military has been playing catch up to the strong international powers from the get go, and until the boom in the 90's, they've done all that work with extremely low resources. And we've caught up with the big players in terms of skill, expertise and capability. The only thing we lack is scale.

But i think we should try get the topic back to three core questions.

Do we need a better equipped Navy and Air Force?
How will we better equip these forces?
Is the expansion Feasible? (can we afford it)

I think we're still stuck on the first question.

Jawgap

I mentioned in another thread - but I think benchmarking ourselves against someone like New Zealand would be a better approach- island nation, on the edge of an ocean beside a [largely:)] benign neighbour.

sparky42

Jawgap wrote: »

I mentioned in another thread - but I think benchmarking ourselves against someone like New Zealand would be a better approach- island nation, on the edge of an ocean beside a [largely:)] benign neighbour.

Also in an area that's relatively peaceful and far from threat areas.

Xios

sparky42 wrote: »

Also in an area that's relatively peaceful and far from threat areas.

New zealand also don't share their land mass with another nation, nor do they have terrorist organisations with a long history of violence.

Some numbers i dug up.
Budget €1.9 billion

Army, 4,500 personnel + 2,500 part-time

Navy, 2 Frigates, 8 other vessels (patrol logistics),2,166 Regular, 333 Reserve, 215 Civilian Staff

Air Force, 50 aircraft, includig 12 training craft, 17 helicopters, 3,250 personnell

Army
New Zealand's Army has around 4,500 full-time and 2,500 part-time troops, organised as light infantry and motorised infantry equipped with 105 Canadian-manufactured LAV III Light Armoured Vehicles (NZLAV). There are also armoured reconnaissance, artillery, logistic, communications, medical and intelligence elements. The New Zealand Special Air Service is the NZDF's special forces capability, which operates in both conventional warfare and counter-terrorist roles.

Navy
The Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) includes two Anzac class frigates, developed in conjunction with Australia, and based on the German MEKO 200 design. Eight other vessels are in use, consisting of patrol vessels and logistics vessels. In 2010, the RNZN completed the acquisition of seven new vessels: one large Multi-Role Vessel named the HMNZS Canterbury, two Offshore Patrol Vessels, and four Inshore Patrol Vessels. All of these vessels were acquired under Project Protector, and were built to commercial, not naval, standards.

Air Force
The Royal New Zealand Air Force consists of 50 aircraft, consisting of P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft and Lockheed C-130 Hercules and other transport aircraft. The RNZAF does not have an air combat force following the retirement without replacement of its A-4 Skyhawk and Aermacchi MB-339 squadrons. A plan to acquire 28 F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft was controversially cancelled by the Labour Government in 2000. The NH90 helicopter was ordered to replace Bell UH-1 Iroquois. The PAC CT/4 Airtrainer is locally produced

sparky42

Xios wrote: »

New zealand also don't share their land mass with another nation, nor do they have terrorist organisations with a long history of violence.

Some numbers i dug up.
Budget €1.9 billion

Army, 4,500 personnel + 2,500 part-time

Navy, 2 Frigates, 8 other vessels (patrol logistics),2,166 Regular, 333 Reserve, 215 Civilian Staff

Air Force, 50 aircraft, includig 12 training craft, 17 helicopters, 3,250 personnell

Army
New Zealand's Army has around 4,500 full-time and 2,500 part-time troops, organised as light infantry and motorised infantry equipped with 105 Canadian-manufactured LAV III Light Armoured Vehicles (NZLAV). There are also armoured reconnaissance, artillery, logistic, communications, medical and intelligence elements. The New Zealand Special Air Service is the NZDF's special forces capability, which operates in both conventional warfare and counter-terrorist roles.

Navy
The Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) includes two Anzac class frigates, developed in conjunction with Australia, and based on the German MEKO 200 design. Eight other vessels are in use, consisting of patrol vessels and logistics vessels. In 2010, the RNZN completed the acquisition of seven new vessels: one large Multi-Role Vessel named the HMNZS Canterbury, two Offshore Patrol Vessels, and four Inshore Patrol Vessels. All of these vessels were acquired under Project Protector, and were built to commercial, not naval, standards.

Air Force
The Royal New Zealand Air Force consists of 50 aircraft, consisting of P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft and Lockheed C-130 Hercules and other transport aircraft. The RNZAF does not have an air combat force following the retirement without replacement of its A-4 Skyhawk and Aermacchi MB-339 squadrons. A plan to acquire 28 F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft was controversially cancelled by the Labour Government in 2000. The NH90 helicopter was ordered to replace Bell UH-1 Iroquois. The PAC CT/4 Airtrainer is locally produced

What's your point about sharing a land border? The UK isn't a threat and isn't going to be (if it ever becomes such it won't matter what defence forces we have?)

In terms of the forces, the two frigates were part of a joint buy with Australia, I wonder if New Zealand could have afforded it without the costs being shared with 12 others built by Australia. As for their Air Force, the P-3's are legacy investments from decades ago, the greater question will be what they replace it with when it comes to the end of its life (P8, P8 LITE, or a CASA plane for example)

OS119

i think the paralells with NZ are misleading - NZ gets a good 'bang for buck' ratio because it has incredibly close defence relationships with its neighbour and with other big military players around the world (US, UK, Canada etc..). Ireland, even if it doubled its defence budget, wouldn't get the same capability because of the reluctance to do any kind of 'pooling' of capabilities/people. infact, it goes even further, because of the non-existance of any domestic defence industry it makes Irelands 'go it alone, but always having to buy from others' defence posture about the least financially efficient/productive model you could devise...

for example, when the RN buys a T45 Destroyer the headline price is about £1bn. but 20% is VAT that goes straight back to the Treasury, then everyone who works on the entire programme pays UK income tax and NI on their income - as well as VAT, Fuel Duty etc.. on everything they buy with whats left of that income. the companies involved pay corporation tax and NI, and the scope of the programme is such that tens of thousands of jobs - and tax reciepts - are generated.

so the £1bn cost is actually nothing like £1bn, it might even be as low as £300m by the time the last tax reciept comes in - but because Ireland doesn't build its own ships/whatever, the headline price for LE Samuel Beckett (and pretty much everything else that the DoD bus) is the cost to Irish society, that money flies out of the door and never comes back.

riffmongous

Xios wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Armed_Forces
I didn't find it with a quick google search, so i'll ask you, what's the average salary for an Austrian soldier?

It seems Austria has a far larger military force
"Active personnel 29,533 (12,000 conscripts)
Reserve personnel 27,000"
For only twice the Irish budget. In saying that, Austria does not have a Navy. Also, Austria was on the forefront of the Cold war and has centuries of military history and experience to fall back on. I'm sure decades of investment into the military has payed dividends and allowed the nation keep a large standing force.

a conscript earns a basic rate of 300€ a month
http://grundwehrdienst.bundesheer.at/Soziales_Geld-140

a professional it seems can earn from 1700-2300, with a 14 month salary period per year, and 30% tax.

The professionals then are ~3000 officers and most of the rest NCOs. The defence forces in their present form only date back to 1955, but there would have been a lot of infrastructure in place, plus an armaments industry.

NewSigGuy

OS119 wrote: »

i think the paralells with NZ are misleading - NZ gets a good 'bang for buck' ratio because it has incredibly close defence relationships with its neighbour and with other big military players around the world (US, UK, Canada etc..). Ireland, even if it doubled its defence budget, wouldn't get the same capability because of the reluctance to do any kind of 'pooling' of capabilities/people. infact, it goes even further, because of the non-existance of any domestic defence industry it makes Irelands 'go it alone, but always having to buy from others' defence posture about the least financially efficient/productive model you could devise...

for example, when the RN buys a T45 Destroyer the headline price is about £1bn. but 20% is VAT that goes straight back to the Treasury, then everyone who works on the entire programme pays UK income tax and NI on their income - as well as VAT, Fuel Duty etc.. on everything they buy with whats left of that income. the companies involved pay corporation tax and NI, and the scope of the programme is such that tens of thousands of jobs - and tax reciepts - are generated.

so the £1bn cost is actually nothing like £1bn, it might even be as low as £300m by the time the last tax reciept comes in - but because Ireland doesn't build its own ships/whatever, the headline price for LE Samuel Beckett (and pretty much everything else that the DoD bus) is the cost to Irish society, that money flies out of the door and never comes back.

While we don't have a domestic defence industry there are other options to make Capital Defence expenditure more affordable. I think it is a mistake that Ireland and in Particular the DOD have completely ignored the Idea of industrial offset. This is common practice in almost every other country where large capital expenditure is on the table.

In the last decade Ireland has bought the PC-9 and Mowag from Switzerland, the AW-139 from Italy, the Lear 45 and Javelin from the USA and now the New Naval Vessels from the UK plus many other capital projects I can't think of. In all cases the DOD should have looked for at least 100% industrial offset, this would make any large capital expenditure far more palatable to the state and the populous..

Xios

sparky42 wrote: »

What's your point about sharing a land border? The UK isn't a threat and isn't going to be (if it ever becomes such it won't matter what defence forces we have?)

In terms of military structure, sharing a land border, with what has been in the past, a hostile/turbulent territory, we had the need for a military to monitor and protect the integrity of our borders. It has little bearing on the current relationship with the north, but it certainly played a part in our military history.

Morpheus

do we own the blueprints and plans for the new OPVs?
Could they be built indigenously either in part or in full in ireland?

sparky42

Xios wrote: »

In terms of military structure, sharing a land border, with what has been in the past, a hostile/turbulent territory, we had the need for a military to monitor and protect the integrity of our borders. It has little bearing on the current relationship with the north, but it certainly played a part in our military history.

In terms of sharing a land border with what has been in the past a hostile territory doesn't mean that the french and Germany nations or armies train and plan the defence around a renewed aggression from either side. I'm not denying or ignoring history but basing current/future military plans on this (particularly given the limited resources the DF had then) isn't relevant in my view.

sparky42

Morpheus wrote: »

do we own the blueprints and plans for the new OPVs?
Could they be built indigenously either in part or in full in ireland?

The baseline designs are property of STX, but we've paid for a lot of the design changes in the Beckett. I'd guess it would depend on the contract.

As to being built domestically, agin why? No yard in Ireland could make a viable operation out of it without government subventions, and given the few OPVs based on this design it's not a high export potential.

Even if we went to UK levels of 2.5% GDP spending, the demand of an Irish defence force would never be enough to sustain a domestic manufacturing system.