I want just to deal with the particular point now. It was necessary to refer to it in that way. As far as the particular members of the Council of Defence are concerned at the moment—the Chief of Staff, the Adjutant General, the Quartermaster General—I would say this, for myself, that when these officers were appointed and at the time they were appointed, I was perfectly satisfied that they were the best appointments that could be made at the time. I hope Deputy Major de Valera will not consider that as an attack on these particular officers. That was my view, from my own particular knowledge.
Deputy Traynor here mentioned certain matters on which he had been advised by the Army Headquarters Staff. The present Minister for Defence, Deputy Dr. O'Higgins, said he had been advised on matters which appeared, on the face of it, to be in conflict. There are quite a number of other matters that I could refer to in which different advice was given to different Ministers. One was in regard to the age limits of officers. Prior to the change of Government an age limit was put into operation and was enforced, and I take it that that age limit was recommended to the Minister by the Army Staff in the best interests of the Defence Forces. Since the change of Government the present Minister has, very wisely and very properly, amended the age-limit provisions and extended the period of service of certain officers. I think we can accept it that the Minister did not do that on his own, that the Army Headquarters agreed with him that it was the correct thing to do.
We had the position in regard to Captain Curran, of the Magazine Fort case, dismissed ignominiously by one Minister and one Government—I take it, with the approval of the Army Staff at the time—and, after a change of Government, reinstated with all the honours that could be given to him, and properly given to him—and very likely, at least I assume so, that was done by the Minister on his own authority but with the approval and with the advice of the Army Staff. These things establish, one point of view conclusively, that the Vice-President of the Executive Council in 1923 was perfectly right when he provided a period of three years' office for these particular officers.
Now, the Bill that we are discussing at the moment makes provision for the extension of service beyond 21 years in the, case of non-commissioned officers and men, it makes provision for the extension of service for a period of 10 years beyond 21 years, that is, it makes provision for an extension to cover a total period of Army service of 31 years in the case of a soldier. I would like to know whether such a scheme was recommended by the Army Council to the previous Minister. I take it that, when it is here before us, it is the recommendation of the present Army Council to the present Minister. But where are the ideas we had, the ideas expressed by the Leader of the Opposition, that the new Army in this country was to be a young man's Army? I am not taking any objection to this amendment. I know that there are very sound reasons why certain soldiers should have the period extended to 31 years, in certain cases. The whole trouble is that there has been so much toying with the ideas of the Army over all these years. A civilian Minister, a Government, can control the Army to a large extent from the point of view of the public purse; but beyond that, the Army should be governed and controlled by its own Army Staff, subject to the law laid down by this Parliament.
I said on a previous occasion that it ought to be our aim and ambition to prevent the Army being the plaything, the toy, of political Parties and political ideas. I do not see that we can do that if, every few years, with every change of Minister, we have completely new views in regard to matters that can be considered policy.
We have several Reserve forces at the moment. The original Army Act provided that no person would be on the Reserve unless that person served for a period in Army service, and was transferred to the reserve as a trained soldier. That was the original conception. But then, about 20 years ago, we began to monkey with the Act, and we made provision whereby you enlisted a man for a day in the Army, and you transferred him to the reserve then. That was only monkeying with the Act then. It was in pursuance of that monkeying that attempts were made to build up an officers' training corps in the different universities. It was not welcome at the time to some individuals, that formation of an officers' training corps; but, nevertheless, there have been developments and amendments of the Act dealing with this question of the Reserve, and now we have different classes of the reserve. What their numbers are I do not know at the moment, but as to whether that Reserve is an officient force, an effective force, whether it is capable of doing the work that it is supposed to do, these are matters that are of importance to us as a Parliament.
One would imagine that when these new Reserves, or Local Defence Force, or Fórsa Cosanta Áitiúil, were being built up, there would be available to assist them in their training and in their administration all those officers and soldiers who had served with distinction in the Army for a great number of years. Across in Britain, even in America, with its present ideas in regard to world conflict, they are quite pleased and anxious to have the assistance of every person who is trained as a soldier and an officer. But what did we do with them? The moment a soldier or officer had completed his period of Army service, we gave him a pension, we put him out, and we made no provision whereby he would be liable for military service in the future. I say to the Minister that there is a great waste of public time in the training of these men and a great waste of public moneys if those officers and soldiers are not to be made available for the defence of the State until they reach, say, 65 years of age. Up to that age they can render valuable service as administrative officers in charge of depôts, as police officers, stores officers and can fill a hundred and one important posts that can be filled successfully only by steady officers and soldiers of their experience. I am to make this recommendation to the Minister, that he should introduce provisions whereby these officers and soldiers would be made available for service in those defence reserve organisations until such time as they have helped to build up an effective and efficient reserve.
It has been said here hundreds of times that we cannot afford a large standing army. That is perfectly clear. We cannot do it. We must do the next best things, which is to build up a citizen force. The only way that can be done is to have available all the trained material that, very fortunately, there is in the country. I know quite a number of officers who served in the Old Reserve, as it was called. There are roughly about 100 of them now. The great majority of them had been Old I.R.A. officers. They had served for a period of seven or eight years in the Regular Army. They had served a period of ten years on the Reserve, doing a month's excellent training every year. They came up at the commencement of the emergency and served with distinction during it. At that time the idea was that on retirement from the regular forces you went on the Reserve and remained on the Reserve until you reached a certain prescribed age limit. Completely out of the blue, the late Government provided that the age limits for the Reserve would be the same as for the Regular Army. The services of these officers, after all those years, were lost. I would appeal to the Minister not to follow that short-sighted policy, but to go back to the original conception and make use of all those officers and soldiers until they reach the age of 65 years.
That brings me to the matter of defence policy—something that we never had, as far as I know, except during the last war when the policy of this State was a policy of neutrality. That was a clear, well-defined policy and there was built up here a magnificent force to preserve that neutrality at all costs. What is our policy at the moment? What is the policy of the Government in regard to the Army? What is their policy in regard to another war? Is our defence policy a policy of neutrality? If it is, we must build up the forces to maintain that neutrality. The only way in which we can do that is by making available all that splendid, trained material that is there only waiting to be harnessed and organised. Will it be the policy of our defence forces that we must reintegrate our national territory by military force? Is that the policy of the defence forces? Is it to be built and organised for that purpose? Is the Department of Defence to take no official notice of that particular position? We can be insulted, we have been insulted, by the Ministers of the Six County Government. Are we to take those insults lying down? I would ask the Minister to consider that it is unfair to an Army Headquarters Staff not to have a specific policy for the armed forces of the State.
I would go so far as to say that at the present juncture in our history, provision should be made by the Minister and by the Government that arms would be available in every house in this country, that our young men, through rifle competitions and otherwise, would be trained in the use of arms, that in the event of an invasion of this country, our young men would fight on every hill, at every cross-roads. We know we cannot build up a defence force that will go out and meet the invaders here or there, but we must make it costly for them to land anywhere, to move anywhere. We can only do that by having every young man in the country armed and available to fight under local leaders. Any other defence policy, in my view, is a wasteful policy. Any other defence policy, in my view, would be a failure.
I had hoped that in introducing this Bill the Minister would have told us how many men are serving in the Army at the moment, how many officers, how many N.C.O.s and how many soldiers are in it; and whether they are able to carry out any course of training whatsoever. I hope that, in replying, he will give that information.