In resuming this debate it may be well to remark again that there is a situation sufficiently dangerous, sufficiently threatening, to warrant, and in fact to necessitate our actively tackling this defence problem, and, secondly, that our defence problem is such, and the amount of leeway that has to be made up is such that it is unnecessary to resolve some of the questions that were introduced into this debate last night as a preliminary to tackling our defence problem. In other words, vital, urgent, and of paramount national importance as the problem of Partition is, or however important the problem as to our precise position if an emergency should come may be, the fact nevertheless remains that so far as our defence problem is concerned, the approach indicated for us and the steps that we can take and which we should take to met this defence problem will be the same in any event and can be embarked upon and prosecuted irrespective of the solution or the outcome of these other problems which have been adverted to. That is important. It is important because it, to that extent, leaves the defence problem a simple one. We are fortunate in this at least that our problem is of such a nature that we have not to speculate on the events of the future and that the general plan we can embark upon will be generally the same in any conceivable event.
The second thing is, and it is equally important, that urgent, vital and important as these other problems are, there is no reason for making them an excuse for putting our defence problem on the long finger. We can, without prejudice to them and without in any way being involved, provide for our defence here at least to a considerably greater extent than anything that has been proposed or embarked upon up to the present moment. We can do that and should do it. What can we do? Visualising what may be before us, whatever it may be, it will be a state of emergency and to a certain extent a state of relative isolation. Whether it is emergency of threatened war, or whether war is actually visited upon us, there will be the problem of feeding the population. With that broad problem of defence our whole agricultural policy is closely connected and though our agricultural policy will come up for discussion on another Estimate, since we are dealing with the question of defence and as this is the only opportunity we shall have of dealing with the repercussions of the agricultural policy on the question of defence, I would ask you, a Chinn Chomhairle, to allow me to refer very briefly to the reactions of our agricultural policy on our defence problem.
A basis to any well-thought-out defence plan is that the country should be self-supporting as far as possible in the production of foodstuffs for our own people. We should not lose sight of the fact that our agricultural organisation should at all times be kept at the stage where it can be immediately turned and developed to feeding and keeping our people at a reasonable standard, if anything like war should come. Fortunately for us —it may be that it was due more to other considerations than to any specific defence design—the tillage policy which we had developed in the pre-war days helped materially to give us independence in that regard when war came, and we found ourselves in the condition of being able to survive the emergency with plenty of food for our own population. Our position as regards food supplies was much superior to that of many other countries in the world. That followed incidentally from the village policy that was developed before the war. So in the present case our Minister for Defence should exercise his influence with his colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, to ensure that at all times such plans will be in existence in connection with our agricultural policy that if an emergency should come the feeding problem will be in at least as satisfactory a position as it was in the last emergency. That is the first and most vital element in our defence.
We, on these benches, by virtue of the fact that we held certain views in regard to an agricultural policy, operated a certain policy from the time this Party assumed the reins of government in 1932. It has been effectively tried out and found not wanting as the policy that is best for us in peace and in war. Some of us feel that it has not been vigorously enough pursued of late and that in recent years balance has been lost. That is a first priority in defence, and if the Minister for Defence is going to provide for an emergency, the first thing he should do is to use his influence with his colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, to ensure that his schemes will provide for that paramount requirement. You may talk about sympathy for others and feeding the people outside, looking after other people's interests and so forth—well, our own people come first and should come first. I mentioned that at length, because in perspective it is the first requirement in defence, and the Minister mentioned it. We can do that. That is the point. The prosecution of that approach to our defence problem is quite independent of any of the other problems, serious, urgent and vital as they are. It is an approach that can be implemented independent of them and, in fact, will contribute towards assisting us in our approach to those other problems.
The next question that arises in connection with the Minister's Department is a question that has been frequently adverted to on this Vote, and it is a vital thing in modern times where war is of a total nature. That is the question of co-ordination with the Department of Industry and Commerce. Firstly, arrangements must be made to feed the people; arrangements must be made to keep life going on at home. If you have the best army in the world you will get very little distance if you have not, as part of your defence preliminaries and organisation, arranged for these things also. That, too, is a subject for another Estimate in detail; it could provide extensive material in itself for a debate.
Certain points come to mind. In so far as the international situation is deteriorating—if it is—and in measure of the probability or danger of an emergency, care should be taken that essential stocks of the materials that we could not import during an emergency are maintained. Storage space is one thing in which the Minister could interest himself actively with his colleagues. During the last war storage proved to be a difficult matter. Provision of stocks and adequate storage can be and should be made in advance. These are vital aspects of our defence policy. They so tie up with a proper peacetime policy for this State that the two can happily go hand-in-hand without throwing any great strain on the community. It is merely the economics of the self-reliant man which not only is best for himself, but also usually works out as his best preparation for an emergency or a time of want.
Fuel and transport come in there. Stocks and emergency production of fuel should actively engage the attention of the Minister. Then there is the question of transport for military purposes or for the evacuation of civilians. How far have these things been co-ordinated? How far has any realistic approach to the possible demand in this element in times of crisis been made?
The question of particular industries is also important. It is regrettable in this connection that when this Government came into power it let certain industries go that would be vital in this regard—industries of a mechanical nature. But spilt milk is spilt milk. We should do what we can with what is left and what we can develop.
There is one line which is important from a defence and a civilian aspect. I have mentioned this in another debate. It is the question of a fertiliser industry. We know from the last war that a fertiliser industry would have been of great value. From the defence angle its importance lies not only in helping to solve the food problem but also from the point of view of deriving chemical supplies from it. A chemical industry can be built around a fertiliser industry. It is of considerable importance in peace time and it can be a useful adjunct to a country such as this in time of war.
Cement is another thing to be considered if we are to deal with the protection of the civilian population, and even from the military side of the picture. In that respect cement supplies must be of considerable interest to the Minister. These are all problems of co-ordination, but there is not an element that I have mentioned so far that should not be of interest to the Minister for Defence.
The Minister will have to coordinate with the Department of Local Government in the matter of regional organisation and so forth. The defence of the civilian population is one thing that must be uppermost in his mind. Whether you are involved or not, certain preliminary arrangements must be made. If there is any danger of war it is vital, if the country is to survive, that adequate protection will be given to the civilian population, particularly in places like Dublin, Cork and Limerick. If you do not provide for that type of defence you can forget about your military defence, because the whole morale of the country will depend on that. Apart from the fact that the nerve centres of Government will largely be featured around these centres of population, the whole question of the morale of the community will depend largely on the provision you make.
In modern times it is vitally essential that you should provide for civilian defence. You need adequate protection from air raids. Incidentally, I anticipate a number of people will talk about atomic bombs. So far there is very little published about whatever success there may have been with the hydrogen nuclear bomb, but there is one thing experts are satisfied with and it is this, that with organisation and proper preparation a very high degree of protection can be achieved in face of threats of bombs of the nature used in Japan. But a sine qua non is that that organisation should be effective; that there is good organisation there and that physical protection in the nature of shelters is provided. Given the organisation and the shelters, it is now believed that protection in face of these new terrors is by no means impossible. It is possible to such an extent that many authorities doubt whether wholesale bombing will be worth while. The important thing is that a high degree of protection can be attained. If that protection is not there, you are very vulnerable indeed. That is one point upon which the whole structure of national morale depends.
On top of that there is the possible threat of chemical or bacteriological warfare. I am not going to try to assess the probabilities in this connection, but once already these agents have been used. In the last war they were expected. The Germans developed more potent chemical poison gases than ever before. Incidentally, following from the development of the atomic bomb there are radio active poisons which have to be considered now.
In England and other countries very vigorous steps are being taken to provide protection against possible attack by these agents. Some protection is possible and the point is that if you do not minimise vulnerability to these things it is hardly worth while to do anything about defence at all. Before the last war, even though it was in a small way, some effort was made to train people to combat these things. This aspect is tied up with Industry and Commerce and Local Government and the Minister who will be considered responsible for thinking about defence in pre-war years must make it his business to bring these aspects to the notice of his colleagues in the Government in order to see that in the present situation, which we are all agreed is sufficiently dangerous to warrant serious attention, every possible angle is attended to.
Not only must civilian defence to that extent be provided for, but the question of evacuation assumes a far greater importance than even in the last war. It ties up with transport and possible troop movements, if there are to be any. Now, we know from the past that these were headaches, and that if any such problems had arisen, problems posed by possible troop movements and the evacuation of the civil population, there was going to be resulting chaos. Having had the opportunity of learning that lesson and of having it so graphically brought before us we should not fail to assimilate it. We should now take concrete steps in regard to planning, preparation and preliminary implementation. There is, of course, the point of the expense involved, but the earlier the start we make the better so that the cost can be more broadly spread. If we put the thing on too long a finger ultimately we will find that there is neither the time to do everything nor the facilities nor money for doing it.
I have mentioned medical services in connection with the civilian population. All these things are, so to speak, basic factors in defence. I think somebody pointed out in a previous debate that our defence force comes in, so to speak, as the hedge inside which you will have to organise your life in emergency conditions if these should come. You need your Defence Forces for internal security, for garrison purposes, and as a deterrent to anybody who might be tempted to interfere with you, and to provide sufficient protection so that no person will have the excuse to come in and dictate to you because you are not sufficiently protected. Just as we can take certain concrete steps in regard to the broad aspects of defence to implement a broad positive policy in that regard so too in regard to our Army. We know that the Minister is having a difficulty in getting equipment at this stage. Everybody has sympathy with him. There are certain things that can be done, and these should be vigorously pursued. If we cannot expand in one direction that is all the more reason why we should vigorously proceed in the direction in which we can.
The Army that we need for defence in time of emergency has fundamentally to be composed of three elements, or five if you like to put it more specifically. You need a permanent force; you need a First Line Reserve; you need a territorial force or the F.C.A. I pointed out last night the vital distinction there is between the roles of these two elements. You also need a naval service as part of your Army and you need your air element. The Minister's advisers will advise on the technical roles for each of these. Generally speaking you have to provide firstly garrisons—local tactical dispositions all over the country—in which your F.C.A. will play their part, and thereafter what one may call your field force. An important matter is whether you want these forces concentrated or whether they should be dispersed, but you want them no matter how they are placed. To meet that picture you need a permanent force of a certain size. Last night I think I was able to point out that the present force is inadequate. We know that actually we are in a worse position, relatively speaking, than we were in in 1940 when the emergency broke. Our permanent force strength is just about comparable to the strength we had in 1939, which was completely inadequate. What can we do about that? There is one thing we can do, and that is to go all out to recruit and build it up to the peace establishment strength which was decided on after long thought and consideration as a basic minimum. Two excuses for not doing that have been given already. I think I have already pointed out that they are not valid. The first excuse was that we could not get the men. The recruiting drive since Christmas shows that we can get the men if we go after them and make conditions sufficiently attractive for them. The second excuse was that we were taking good men away from production. I pointed out last night that that excuse is not valid while we have the emigration and the unemployment that we have to-day. As far as the permanent force is concerned we can and should build it up.
The Minister asked for help. Surely, there is something ironical in that. The Minister will get all the help he wants to build up the permanent and voluntary force, and what we say to him is to "go ahead with the job". He will get encouragement and he is getting it now. It is encouraging to know that in three months he was able to get enough to make up the wastage of two years—not completely by any means but to a certain extent. We did get about 1,100 recruits. It should, therefore, be possible to get the few thousand more that we need to fill up our establishment.
I have been very critical of the Minister, but I am very glad that the Minister has preserved the percentages in the way that he has. The Minister has preserved the proportion of N.C.O.s and officers. I think that was a very wise and proper thing to do. I do not know if they are quite up to establishment, but the point is that whatever wastage occurred in the specialised elements it has been less serious, even though something below establishment, in the case of N.C.O.s and officers.
We are pleased with the reports we have heard in regard to the military college and of the standard of training there amongst leaders and officers. I think it always had a high standard, and I understand that very good work is being done there. Every facility and encouragement should be given there, and I hope it will continue to be given. We can provide a training for leaders. There is surely enough equipment to provide general training and that should be used to build up a full peace establishment with the proper cadre for reserves, so that you will have the structure and skeleton around which to build up your purely military defence schemes. In addition to the military aspect of the question, the Minister will have to provide an organisation for civilian defence, which may require whole-time personnel. That is a matter that can be gone into in greater detail at another time.
Now the permanent force is the basis upon which everything depends on the purely military side of the picture. In fact, in a small country like this our whole defence problem largely depends on the morale of the regular forces because in the pre-emergency stages practically all defence problems will be shifted back to this particular Minister and his Department. I should like, therefore, to digress at this stage to something which the Minister has been insisting upon in a number of debates. The Minister has been very fond of saying to Deputy Traynor, in particular, that he was merely trying to carry a large voluntary Army; that years ago this Party was all out for reducing the permanent Army and having a voluntary force. Be that as it may, I want to deal with two possible views on this question which have been advanced in the past. I have done so already in previous debates, but as the Minister has brought it up again in this one, it is no harm to dispose of it.
There were two schools of thought in this regard before the last emergency. One school said you were wasting your time on reserves. That particular school of thought saw the difficulty of training reserves, the high percentage of wastage inevitable with voluntary reserves, and felt that the only answer in modern times was, as many military people in these days thought, a very highly mobile trained regular force and concentrated on that. The trouble about that is that you cannot get the uniform standard of personnel required; that you cannot support the numbers which will justify you in having such a force in a small country like this and that you have to rely on reserves largely which will only become a serious expense to you when actually needed. Therefore, on the opposite side of the argument, there were those people to whom the Minister was referring who advocated that you should have a small skilful Regular Army where every man was trained to be a potential officer and that on that small cadre you should mobilise the reserves; in other words, an extremely small permanent force and a big reserve which would be mobilised on that.
That idea, in the light of our experience also, is not altogether practicable. The first thing that we learned in all our experience with the Volunteer Reserve in 1929, the B Reserve, the O.T.C., and particularly the Volunteer Force, and I think it will be learned from the F.C.A. to-day, although they are not a first line reserve, was that there was a limit to the size of the Reserve you could maintain and that that limit is fixed by the size of the Regular Army; that if given a Regular Army of any particular size that Army can only usefully support a Reserve of a certain limited size related to the particular size of the existing Army. Therefore, you might put it this way: that for so many men in the Reserve you want one man in the permanent service, whether officer or N.C.O., to provide for administration, Reserve, training, etc. It is illusory and dangerous, therefore, to think in terms of a reserve of 100,000 and a regular force in the vicinity of 5,000 to 10,000 as such a regular force could not cater for that reserve and the whole thing would become simply a sham.
There is another reason which I gave before as to why the aspirations of having a small highly-skilled army and a big reserve will not work. I mentioned the fact that the standard of character, education and so forth of the personnel in an army as you will find in practice will never be such as to give 100 per cent. or a very large percentage of potential officer material of the sort you require. The next one is the incidence of garrison and similar duties. There is a certain basic limit there and it will be shown up particularly in a time of emergency, as in 1939. There are certain basic guards which must be supplied by the regular troops and those guards and garrisons take away from the pool which will handle the Reserve and be available for field troops. That is a further factor which invalidates the argument.
The next thing is that on mobilisation you must have trained and ready for the word "go" a small minimum number of troops for disposal to protect the key points and meet immediate requirements. You must have them ready immediately and that necessitates the particular strength of the permanent force being something more than that of a cadre. In other words, even though every man was of officer material, nevertheless, apart from wanting regular personnel to be a skeleton for reserve formations, you want certain regular units already embodied and disposable as such and that requirement absorbs a considerable number of troops and again tends to increase the size of the Regular Army you must maintain.
Lastly, there is the technical consideration that under modern conditions the training of technical troops, signals, engineers, artillery, and I would go so far as to say, infantry, is such that it is not sufficient to have the individual skilled and trained, but the team as a whole, as a unit, must be trained and technically skilled. To get skill and efficiency in that sense requires numbers and that also tends to increase the size of the force. Two years ago in this Estimate I dealt with these particular points in great detail, and I do not intend to labour them now. But, in reply to the Minister's suggestion that all he was doing was carrying out what was advocated from these benches, namely, a small Regular Army supporting a large reserve, I say that from our experience in the years of the emergency, coupled with present-day conditions, that concept has to be revised. It may have been valid when most of the equipment consisted of rifles, but it is not valid now. We have to take these facts as we find them and, therefore, the strength of the permanent force, particularly in regard to specialists, should be increased.
Finally, it resolves itself back again to attaining and maintaining the peace establishment that is there, particularly in regard to technical corps. The Minister has adverted to something I said on the Defence Forces Bill, namely, that the unsatisfactory position exists where men have left the force and that the technical corps are being maintained by civilian personnel. I know the decision from which that flowed and I think I could have anticipated that. The Minister says this matter is under consideration and I simply then commend to him that he should pursue vigorously whatever method is adopted, whether it is a question of restoring the specialist pay or whatever it is; that something will have to be done to mobilise, in the sense of making mobile, those units which depend on such personnel. It is perhaps a more urgent job than merely filling the infantry units. As part of the task of maintaining the establishment this whole question of specialists needs urgent attention. The next problem is the problem of the First Line Reserves. For a number of years past an idea seems to have crept in that the F.C.A. will take the place of the First Line Reserve. Last night I gave the reasons as to why I think that is not so and cannot be so. The First Line Reserve is nothing more nor less than the personnel to be mobilised in order to build up an army of sufficient strength in times of emergency. They are the personnel which will be called upon in order to expand by so many more thousands to a bigger army than one can maintain in peace time. Under modern conditions it is essential that such a reserve should have sufficient experience to enable it to take its place quickly in the military machine should mobilisation be necessary.
The ideal type of First Line Reserve is that of officers, N.C.O.s and men who served in the Regular Army for a few years and who do a certain amount of refresher training every year. That is the most efficient type of reserve, and that is the type that will give one the least wastage and the least friction should mobilisation become necessary. These men have already had experience both as a team and as individuals, and a greater degree of training than can be achieved by a purely voluntary force. One of the snags in that regard, however, is that such a reserve is completely conditioned by the outflow from the Regular Army. If one maintains the Army at a certain strength, one can only maintain a reserve of a certain corresponding strength. It looks, and I make this statement with a certain amount of caution, both from the pre-war figures and the present-day figures, as if the approximate strength of the Reserve will be something similar to the strength of the permanent force itself. It may be a little less. That depends upon the terms of service. It is something which can perhaps be adjusted.
Before the war we had 4,000 to 5,000 in the "A" and "B" category. Now we have about 6,000. That means that at any time one must be content with a fully mobilised Army of approximately double our peace-time strength. The only alternative is to supply the deficiency by some other means, either by means of compulsory service or by means of a voluntary First Line Reserve. I traced the figures in detail last night, and they clearly show that a First Line Reserve of that nature will not be good enough since it only gives us about 14,000 first line men at the moment. Both the Cumann na nGaedheal and the Fianna Fáil Governments felt there was a definite need to supplement this part of the Reserve. The "A" and "B" Reserves were in existence only a few years when the Cumann na nGaedheal Government felt there was a need. That Government was in the position of having a big "A" Reserve of both officers and men, who had been trained over a number of years in the Army, and who had actual experience of fighting. The first experiment then was the Volunteer Reserve and the O.T.C. The Volunteer Reserve was on too small a scale to give any indication of its potentialities. The O.T.C. was inefficiently prosecuted and turned into a holiday camp for university students. It cannot be counted, therefore, in any serious reckoning. The "B" Reserve was a kind of militia scheme, and did give a certain amount of promise. It augmented the then available Reserve by approximately 3,000 men. Many people objected to it because it gave you men but did not give you leader material. But it gave good men working on a system of three months' intensive training and an annual period of training thereafter. It may be that the Minister will consider supplementing the First Line Reserve by something of that nature. There was then the Officer Reserve. In those days there was a larger proportion of Reserve officers than would normally flow out from the Army. That was due to certain historical reasons.
Now some provision will have to be made for a Reserve of Officers as time goes on. That is much more important than the men. With the men, after two years' service one automatically has a certain number in reserve. But there are very few officers flowing to reserve, since when they are commissioned they go right through until they reach the retiring age. At that point they are useless as field soldiers. The present Reserve of Officers consists for the most part of officers who came from the emergency, and who remained on the Reserve after the emergency. As far as I know, no addition has been made to that group, and the Minister has the serious problem of supplying his First Line Reserve with commissioned personnel.
I mentioned the experience of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. The experience of the Fianna Fáil Government was also that some fúrther reserve was necessary. Deputy Aiken, as Minister for Defence, energetically developed the Volunteer force and provided approximately 10,000 more men on the First Line Reserve. In its initial stages it was found that the scheme was almost too voluntary and the provisions made for resignation and so forth were most unsatisfactory. I traced its history on another debate. The important point is that in the early months of 1939 that force was reorganised and reconstituted a First Line Reserve with no escape, so to speak. The officers, N.C.O.s and men were given a proper army standard of training and when war broke out it was possible to mobilise out of that Reserve approximately 7,500 men. One was able to add to the 4,500 A and B Reservists 7,000 from this Volunteer force. All the members of that force had done a certain amount of full-time training and its officers had attended an intensive course of night-time training every week and every week-end over a period of 18 months or two years in order to bring them up to the required standard, or else a whole-time course at the Military College. Despite that, the military authorities felt that some further time would be necessary to get that particular element up to the regular standard and that more time would be required for that purpose than would be required for the A Reserve or the natural First Line Reserve flowing from the Regular Army. Yet, here we are to-day with no provision for that First Line Reserve.
It is high time now that the Minister adverted to that problem. In the days of his predecessor it was already under consideration. Only two courses are possible—(1) compulsory military service, which has been adopted in practically every country in the world or (2) some sort of voluntary scheme. There are particular problems in this country which make the matter extremely difficult in regard to what has been done in other countries as to first line reserves. However, the alternative was open to us, and it was effectively pursued by us and in the last analysis justified. If you could mobilise about 85 per cent. of that reserve when you wanted them in 1939, then your experiment was justified. It was more than justified in the event, particularly as time was available to absorb these men. The officers and men were of importance; even the wastage was of importance. When it came to call for recruits in 1940, many of those who had already got partial training, who were wastage in the sense that they had already gone, came back and the training given them then paid dividends and came back to the advantage of the Army as a whole.
The point for the Minister now is this: that in dealing with this problem of the Reserve he can do little in regard to the flow from the Regular Army; that his officer reserve is a problem in itself and that he can only hope to keep it going in the future supplemented by some voluntary scheme; that something must be done about the necessity for adding to his Reserve to bring it up to any particular size in time of emergency. If the Minister or the country is not prepared to deal with the problem as it has been dealt with by other countries, then some voluntary scheme must be put into force in addition to the F.C.A. The rôles are two completely different things. Both matters were largely examined and what you might call the planning and report stage were done before the Minister assumed office. Much of the donkey and spade work has been done. Very little time should be wasted on exploratory planning, as much of that has been done. I would commend to the Minister the necessity for developing this element of his First Line Reserve—again, the sine qua non is to have a Regular Army of sufficient strength. It would be folly to embark on anything like that if you have not the regular personnel and cadre. It was considered at that time that the peace establishments which now exist were the absolute basic minimum. This matter is very serious and the Minister is responsible if anything should break. If the situation should become more serious, mounting towards a crisis, it is the Minister in this particular period who will have to bear the blame because precious time is flowing and all this particular part of the problem could be solved without undue strain on the community. We did it in 1934 to 1939 in times when it was much harder to make the people of the country understand, in times in which the Minister had parliamentary and other opposition to any such course. Surely to-day, when an intelligent people see the signs, when we can get unanimity here, when the Government can be certain that the Opposition in Parliament will not exploit or will not hinder it where it is tackling a job of national importance, surely in all these circumstances there is no excuse for not attending to those particular problems. The solution in no way depends on many of the extraneous although important matters that have been introduced into this debate.
Now we come to the F.C.A. The F.C.A., as I pointed out last night, both from its nature and from the rôle which it may be called upon to play, is not to be considered as a First Line Reserve. It is wrong and dangerous for us to consider that the F.C.A. as such, on its present establishment and so forth, is taking the place of a First Line Reserve, and it is wrong and dangerous to represent to the country that we have a sufficient Regular Army with about 20,000 reserves tacked on. It is wrong for the reasons that I mentioned last night. The F.C.A. have a rôle of their own to perform, and they will be needed in that rôle in time of war. Many from their ranks will possibly flow as volunteers to the Regular Army when wanted but then somebody else will have to attend to the F.C.A. job. It is an important and honourable rôle. These same F.C.A. men will not be available either in peace or war to do the intensive training necessary to fit them for the specialised job of First Line Reserves. That does not mean that they are in any way inferior. Their job is specialised, but it will be specialised to fit in with the fact that they will only be part-time soldiers, and can give only a certain amount of time, and that some of them will be needed in their civilian vocations during war as in peace-time. That fact should be grasped, and particularly so at the moment, on their terms of service. Some time ago I asked the Minister and he was good enough to furnish me with the terms of service of the F.C.A. in comparison with the terms of service of the Volunteer Force. From that information it is quite apparent that the officers and men of the F.C.A. will never be able to get the degree of training in all the specialised arms and aspects that are necessary for a First Line Reserve. For instance the F.C.A. officer will not be able to get the detailed technical training that the First Line Reserve officer requires to take his place in a first line formation. On the other hand, he has certain very vital jobs of a different nature altogether to do. The same applies to the men. I am by no means disparaging the F.C.A. in its functions, but it is perfectly evident that on the present terms of service of that force they cannot and should not be called upon to fill that bill when we consider the standard of training required from a first line point of view.
Another aspect, too, to which I might refer is that at the present moment for some reason that I do not understand they have been confined to the rifle battalions except in a few specialised areas such as Dublin. That is the information which I got a short time ago. I hope that has been changed. I see no reason why these men should not be trained in the use of all automatic weapons, the placing of mines, demolitions and so forth, that they can do and should do. The main difficulty arises from the question of time. There, therefore, is another problem. The training of the F.C.A. should not be confused with the raising and training of a First Line Reserve. But it is equally important and should get attention, and in this regard I think it would be only courteous to say that I think the Minister is doing the right thing if he attaches more regular personnel to the F.C.A. to train them and to encourage them. They are a vitally important and necessary factor in our defence scheme. They are a pool of possible recruits either to your First Line Reserve when you embark upon it or even to your regular Army, and they should be trained and given all facilities. It applies to all reserves, First or Second Line, the necessity for supplying not only adequate administrative military personnel and training equipment but also adequate training personnel to train the force. In other words, it is back to the old story of to every element of the Reserve a minimum cadre or skeleton is needed, and that puts a strain on your permanent Army, and we come back to the question of peace establishments and the necessity for maintaining its strength. The facilities the F.C.A. will require will be almost as exacting upon the Regular Army, if not more so, than the facilities for First Line Reserve. But the two should not be confused. I hope in the future we shall not make the mistake which I think has been made heretofore of largely confusing the roles of these various elements. I am not saying anything about the details as to the exact disposal of these elements in time of crisis. That is a technical matter. It is a matter for the staff, but the point is that no matter what way you tackle it you need men and the organisation to do it. You need adequate permanent forces and an adequate First Line Reserve, so that you will have an adequate Army when mobilisation becomes necessary, and, on top of that, a Local Defence Force to fulfil their own particular role, to collaborate with the Regular Army and, to a certain extent, to save the necessity for having an excessive call on manpower for purely military purposes. So much for personnel.
These are the concrete things we can do. These are things in regard to which it is no excuse to say that the problem is so difficult that we can do nothing about it. These are things for which you require only a little bit of energy on your part and you will get results. There is nothing in the requirements of that aspect of the picture that would justify the Minister in his attitude when he said that he wished he were living in some past age and had not his present problem. Something concrete can be done and should be done. Our experience of the past is that it can be done particularly as regards a First Line Reserve.
We move on to an equally vital aspect of the story now, the question of equipment. One must realise the great difficulty the Minister has in this regard, if we accept his statement when he says that he cannot get any equipment at all. On the other hand, there are certain steps in that direction that we could take ourselves and why cannot we take them? First of all, is everybody satisfied that every vigorous effort necessary is being made by the Government? I am quite satisfied that every effort is being made by the Army, but the Army, so far as the Minister's Department is concerned, must act departmentally in peace time. I wonder if any vigorous effort was made by the Minister's Department to get vital equipment, in spite of all the protestations we have heard? I have heard, for instance, that two years ago certain equipment was available and we did not take it. I know that up to that time there was the problem of balancing the danger of buying too soon against the danger of being too late. That has been mentioned on previous occasions. It is true that that problem remained up to the spring of 1948. It was in the early summer of 1948 that the Scandinavian countries gave the first danger signal. It was not until the following autumn that the British post-war trend was reversed towards war preparations again. It was not until the autumn of 1948 that that took place and that the acute needs of the situation became really apparent but, nevertheless, it should have been possible at that time to get some equipment. I am not quite satisfied that if a vigorous effort were made some could not be got, of some sort.
I mentioned last night in connection with equipment that whereas expenditure on every other head had increased in the last two years, there was a startling decrease in expenditure on the heads dealing with equipment. Even though I am prepared to concede to the Minister that possibly the price of equipment, since it is a very technical thing, may not have increased owing to what I might call the reflection of present price trends, still it is significant that instead of showing an increase, as other items have shown, where vital equipment is concerned, we show a radical decrease. Anyway, surely the Minister and the Department might find it possible to do certain things and to go a certain distance towards providing certain equipment? I know that what we can do here will be small indeed, but it will be doing something all the same. The Minister referred to the armoured brigade, that if we had an armoured brigade going down O'Connell Street we would not see the men in it. All right, but in spite of the Minister's suggestion everything is not conditioned by the armoured brigade. Anything I have read on that matter seems to suggest that military writers and thinkers wonder as to whether the defensive is not in the ascendant again. I cannot turn up the reference at the moment, but the works of certain writers which I have read seem to suggest that an efficient anti-tank defence is the mine-field. Towards the end of the war one of the big trends was towards the mine. Surely it should be possible to make mines? Handicapped as we were in the emergency, we could do something in that direction. We could even make a home-made explosive for it. Surely in conjunction with certain scientific people in the country, as we did in the Emergency Research Bureau, you could get results in that way.
There have been relatively simple anti-tank devices developed during the war, like the Bazooka. It is not beyond the engineering possibilities of our country to develop devices of that kind, if we cannot get equipment outside. They may be inferior to what you could buy, but they would be better than nothing. When you come to an emergency, anyway, you will be forced to improvisation of that kind. If the Minister is not prepared to spend the money on actual production, surely he could get together some staff, some people to lay the plans, and who would be ready at the word "go" to provide for these things.
The Minister has difficulty in getting equipment—we can see that. He should try to get all he can. I am not going to go back over the sorry history of his first year in office in that regard. He can explore and get effective results in the line of improvisation. It may not be the most satisfactory way, and I know there is a certain repugnancy in that approach to any Regular Army officer or anybody who has a pride in his trade, but nevertheless it can be done. But there is a possible concrete approach to this problem. All of these items could be expanded.
I want to refer again, before I close, to some figures. It has been necessary to deal with these figures because the Minister's information in regard to some of them, particularly on the last occasion, was not very accurate, and I think we should insist, without offence to the Minister, on a very high standard of ministerial accuracy in regard to such things as statistics. Parliamentary life would become a complete farce if Deputies are to be in any way misled or put off by inaccurate information from ministerial quarters. I make every allowance, realising what the Minister said on the Defence Forces Bill was impromptu. Nevertheless, the principle is of sufficient importance. What is more, the method in which these remarks were made was such as to indicate that the Minister was grossly misinformed within his own Department, and that is a serious thing.
In the debate on that Bill there were four occasions on which reference was made to figures and I will ask the Minister to advert to them. These figures got a certain amount of publicity in the country and it was misleading and inaccurate information for the country. It was featured in papers favourable to the Government. The first was the question of Army strength, and I can hardly accept that as a slip, because it was repeated three times. In Volume 119, No. 6, column 820, Tuesday, 28th February, the Minister is reported:—
"It is higher than when I took over."
At column 993 the Minister said:—
"...the fact of the matter is that we have a bigger Army to-day than his Minister for Defence left behind him."
In columns 884-5 he is reported:—
"As the Deputy knows when he left me a smaller Army than we have at the moment, he camouflaged that by putting down a figure which misled his Leader this evening..."
There were three definite statements and, resulting from them, certain searching questions were put to the Minister and the Minister quite frankly admitted his error, the fact being that not only had the Army fallen in strength but by December of last year it had reached a figure lower than in 1939, when war broke out. In December of last year we had a Regular Army of less strength than was available when war broke out in September of 1939 and there was a First Line Reserve of approximately only half of the First Line Reserve then available. In view of that situation, and particularly because those figures got such publicity, I feel it is my duty to advert to them now. I regard it as a dangerous thing.
In the Seanad the Minister mentioned in connection with the same Bill that the recruits numbered 895, but in reply to Deputy Colley he gave, in Volume 119, the figure 842. Another error I would like to ask the Minister to explain is this: in Volume 119, No. 9, dealing with the question of strength, the Minister referred in column 1279 to the number of cadets. Surely the Minister should know the number of cadets? I referred to the cadets and said there were about 100 and the Minister said 170 or 180. It is quite clear if one does a little arithmetic on the figures the Minister gave that the number of cadets was 134. In a question asked him about cadets about 31st March the number was set out as 134, and presumably the number was more or less the same for the past year. If the Minister had 134 cadets there is no excuse for telling the House that there were 180. In the same debate the Minister said:—
"I venture to say offhand that, in the way of armaments and warlike stores, I have purchased in two years more armaments and warlike stores than were ever purchased before my time in any given two-year period."
I wonder will the Minister expand that? He said last night that we are now purchasing less than ever, and he gave the reason.
