The late SDLP politician Seamus Mallon referred to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement as being “Sunningdale for Slow Learners”. Ireland has a surfeit of political and institutional slow learners on current threats to international peace and security, including those threats on our own doorstep. There are sobering security and defence realities coming rapidly down the track for Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael but most especially Sinn Féin.
In December, 1993, the Downing Street Declaration included, inter alia, “the British Government had no selfish strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland”. It’s not certain if this reference on the North’s strategic geography holds as strong today due to current European insecurity. This issue was highlighted in the UK’s Policy Exchange “Closing the Back Door” on Northern Ireland ‘s place in the UK’s defence and security architecture.
Last Saturday Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill was voted into the role of First Minister in Northern Ireland. She committed rightly to being a First Minister for all citizens of all persuasions in Northern Ireland. Currently, the citizens of Northern Ireland enjoy the comfort of the security umbrella offered to it by UK and NATO forces interoperability and resources in these uncertain times of global insecurity.
The Good Friday Agreement enshrines the possibility of a referendum on Irish unity under certain circumstances. One might reasonably ask if that referendum comes to pass what role will defence issues play in that debate. To date, defence is never spoken of or referenced in all the surveying of opinions or included in any of writings or debates on reunification. Those advocating for unity will actually be asking northern citizens to inherit and accept the negligible Republic’s defence capability against the security they enjoy now from UK and NATO forces.
Has Ireland an ideological commitment to having a Defence Forces? Perhaps not. The need for ‘better pay and conditions’ is routinely trotted out by politicians, journalists and commentators on the current staffing crisis. Improved pay for private soldiers and increased seagoing allowances for sailors is trumpeted. It’s a smokescreen for the lowest paid. The ‘elephant in the room’ is the 2013 Single Pension Act, the failure to implement the Working Time Directive, and the failure to embrace Long Service Increments to reward retention, for a start.
The recent Ireland/NATO agreement on maritime issues is limited in scope. It trumpets, for instance, Ireland’s access to NATO’s vast intelligence resources. When Defence Forces personnel attend Intelligence Courses in NATO countries our students leave the classroom when sensitive issues are discussed. Our personnel do not have full NATO clearance. It’s a sobering reality. Government continues to deny the existence of the ‘secret’ deal the UK for the RAF to surge into Ireland’s airspace to interdict rogue aircraft with their transponders turned off.
The intelligence that Ireland will receive from NATO will be cursory. Real intelligence interaction is a two-way street. Intelligence is a traded commodity just like sugar or coffee. Ireland simply doesn’t have anything of substance to trade with due to its understaffed, under resourced and underdeveloped intelligence architecture. Ireland does not have an Oireachtas Oversight Committee on State Intelligence. The Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence found out about this recent NATO arrangement from the front page of the Irish Times.
Ireland’s commitment of 200 Defence Forces personnel to a German led EU’s standby Battlegroup for the coming years has had little analysis. It is opposed by the ‘usual suspects’ confusing neutrality with disarmament. The majority of Irish troops task is Battlegroup Headquarters Guard Company, the static security of the Brigade Headquarters. In Ireland’s troop deployments to international forces since 1960 this static role has been allocated predominantly to, ahem, third world or developing countries contingents. A new sobering reality for us perhaps.
The late SDLP politician Seamus Mallon referred to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement as being “Sunningdale for Slow Learners”. Ireland has a surfeit of political and institutional slow learners on current threats to international peace and security, including those threats on our own doorstep. There are sobering security and defence realities coming rapidly down the track for Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael but most especially Sinn Féin.
In December, 1993, the Downing Street Declaration included, inter alia, “the British Government had no selfish strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland”. It’s not certain if this reference on the North’s strategic geography holds as strong today due to current European insecurity. This issue was highlighted in the UK’s Policy Exchange “Closing the Back Door” on Northern Ireland ‘s place in the UK’s defence and security architecture.
Last Saturday Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill was voted into the role of First Minister in Northern Ireland. She committed rightly to being a First Minister for all citizens of all persuasions in Northern Ireland. Currently, the citizens of Northern Ireland enjoy the comfort of the security umbrella offered to it by UK and NATO forces interoperability and resources in these uncertain times of global insecurity.
The Good Friday Agreement enshrines the possibility of a referendum on Irish unity under certain circumstances. One might reasonably ask if that referendum comes to pass what role will defence issues play in that debate. To date, defence is never spoken of or refenced in all the surveying of opinions or included in any of writings or debates on the reunification. Those advocating for unity will actually be asking northern citizens to inherit and accept the negligible Republic’s defence capability against the security they enjoy now from UK and NATO forces.
Has Ireland an ideological commitment to having a Defence Forces? Perhaps not. The need for ‘better pay and conditions’ is routinely trotted out by politicians, journalists and commentators on the current staffing crisis. Improved pay for private soldiers and increased seagoing allowances for sailors is trumpeted. It’s a smokescreen for the lowest paid. The ‘elephant in the room’ is the 2013 Single Pension Act, the failure to implement the Working Time Directive, and the failure to embrace Long Service Increments to reward retention, for a start.
The recent Ireland/NATO agreement on maritime issues is limited in scope. It trumpets, for instance, Ireland’s access to NATO’s vast intelligence resources. When Defence Forces personnel attend Intelligence Courses in NATO countries our students leave the classroom when sensitive issues are discussed. Our personnel do not have full NATO clearance. It’s a sobering reality. Government continues to deny the existence of the ‘secret’ deal the UK for the RAF to surge into Ireland’s airspace to interdict rogue aircraft with their transponders turned off.
The intelligence that Ireland will receive from NATO will be cursory. Real intelligence interaction is a two-way street. Intelligence is a traded commodity just like sugar or coffee. Ireland simply doesn’t have anything of substance to trade with due to its understaffed, under resourced and underdeveloped intelligence architecture. Ireland does not have an Oireachtas Oversight Committee on State Intelligence. The Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence found out about this recent NATO arrangement from the front page of the Irish Times.
Ireland’s commitment of 200 Defence Forces personnel to a German led EU standby Battlegroup for the coming years has had little analysis. It is opposed by the ‘usual suspects’ confusing neutrality with disarmament. The majority of Irish troops task is Battlegroup Headquarters Guard Company, the static security of the Brigade Headquarters. In Ireland’s troop deployments to international forces since 1960 this static role has been allocated predominantly to, ahem, third world or developing countries contingents. A new sobering reality for us perhaps.
#UK #Defence #NorthernIreland #Security
Senator Gerard Craughwell
Independent Senator & member of the Labour Vocational Panel of Seanad Éireann.
Autobiography
I was born in Galway in 1953 and am one of eleven children. I am married to Helen, and I have two children David and Rebecca and one grandchild Ellie. I started work at the age of 16 as a bar man in London but was always drawn to a military life and a few months after starting work in London I joined the Kings Division Depot of the Royal Irish Rangers as a boy soldier. The training was tough but by the time I was 17 I was a first class signals operator, the youngest Lance Corporal in the regiment and had completed my first instructors course. Life was good.
I stayed in the British Army until 1974 when I was forced to make a choice between the British Army and a return to Ireland and I choose the latter. I was fortunate to be able to join the Irish Army and having survived the ordeal of recruit basic training for the second time and this time as Gaeilge, I was soon transferred to the Non Commissioned Officers training school for the Western Command where I was appointed as Corporal and later Sergeant and a instructor in the training school.
In 1980 an opportunity came to allow me to leave the army and take over a contract my father had with Calor Gas. Three days after I finished with the army, Calor Gas took a decision to dispense with external contractors. I was out of the army and had no contract. I formed a Limited Company GAS Ltd (Galway Appliance Services Ltd) and very soon secured a contract with Flo Gas. The business grew rapidly we moved from domestic work into industrial work. Despite working every hour God sent me the Company failed and in 1983 it went into Liquidation. This was a very tough time for our family as we lost our home and everything we had.
Encouraged by my wife Helen I looked for work everywhere and got a job as a Part-time Driver with Underfoot Distributors Ltd Athlone, Co. Westmeath. The work was hard and the hours long but I was grateful to be able to provide for my family again. As luck would have it I was blessed to get a good job with Aughinish Alumina Ltd in 1986. The company paid for our re-location to Limerick where we began a whole new life. In 1990 as a result of a serious back injury my career with Aughinish came to an end. I was 37 and without qualifications. Once again fate intervened and an ad in the The Limerick Post’ offering a BSc in Economics jumped off the page at me. My early days at Limerick Senior College were among the most stressful days of my life, but unlike my earlier educational experiences, LSC was not like school. I will never forget the kindness and professionalism of those who taught there.
Despite many pressures I succeeded in my course and one of the proudest days of my life was my graduation from the London School of Economics in the Barbican Centre London. Following my graduation I was given 11 hours teaching at LSC while undertaking a Post Graduate Diploma in Computing at the University of Limerick. In 1995 having qualified with a Graduate Diploma in Computing I started work at the Senior College Dun Laoghaire and my family made another move, this time to Dublin.
From the moment I arrived at SCD I was aware of the “can-do” ethos just like I had experienced at LSC. However now the shoe was on the other foot and I was the one at the blackboard. The level of collegiately I experienced at SCD was incredible. I became an Assistant Principal in the school and an active member of the Teachers Union of Ireland where I was Chairman of the Further education Committee for the TUI Executive Committee and a Board Member of the TUI Credit Union. I was the sole Irish Committee Member of the Information Technology Certifying Organisation CompTIA. In 2012 I was thrilled to become the President of the TUI a post I held until 2014.