Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 11 Apr 1967

Vol. 227 No. 8

Committee on Finance. - Vote 43 — Defence.

Minister for Defence (Mr. Hilliard)

I move:

That a sum not exceeding £11,969,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1968, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Defence, including certain Services administered by that Office; for the Pay and Expenses of the Defence Forces; and for payment of a Grant-in-Aid.

The Estimate for Defence for 1967-68 is for a sum of £11,969,000, which is £1,167,000 more than the amount voted for 1966-67. Deputies will recollect, however, from the Supplementary Estimate which I introduced recently that, because of the tenth round pay increases and other factors, the Dáil would have had to be asked for a very substantial sum rather than the token £10 actually sought, were it not that appropriations in aid for 19661967 greatly exceeded expectations. More than one-half of the £1,167,000 by which the present Estimate exceeds last year's figure is due to these tenth round increases.

During the past year Ireland continued to contribute contingents to the United Nations Force in Cyprus. This Force was established, following a resolution dated 4th March, 1964, adopted by the Security Council of the United Nations, and with the consent of the Government of Cyprus. Its functions were defined as follows:

In the interest of preserving international peace and security, to use its best efforts to prevent a recurrence of fighting and, as necessary, to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of law and order and a return to normal conditions.

Since the inception of the Force, Ireland has been supplying contingents and, with six-monthly rotations, three battalions and five infantry groups have served in Cyprus. The 7th Infantry Group comprising some 500 troops, all ranks, and a headquarters staff element of 18 has now completed its six months tour of duty. It has been replaced by the 8th Infantry Group under the decision of the Government to accede to the Secretary General's request for maintenance of an Irish contingent with the Force until the current extension of the United Nations mandate expires on 26th June next. By that date, 21 Irish units and associated staff elements will have had, between them, seven years' continuous service with United Nations Forces, first in the Republic of the Congo and then in the Republic of Cyprus. The total strength, all ranks, of these formations is about 11,250 troops. Bearing in mind the relatively small strength of the Army, its contribution to the maintenance of world peace during those seven years ranks with the best and both the personnel who served abroad and those who shouldered the extra duties thereby created at home deserve congratulations on a job well done.

In the course of an address to officers and men of the 7th Infantry Group on the occasion of the presentation to them of the United Nations Cyprus Medal, the Force Commander, Lieutenant-General Martola, said:

It is a great pleasure for me to visit the Irish contingent serving with the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus. You are halfway through your tour here and I would like to express my most grateful and sincere thanks and appreciation to all of you for the excellent work you have done. Many times the work has been hard for you, serving as you do under great pressure and arduous circumstances, but showing patience and endurance of a high military standard, you have at all times remained firm and steadfast. You have carried out your work in a really excellent manner.

During the year also Irish officers continued to serve with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation which continues to observe the maintenance of the cease-fire in the former territory of Palestine and to assist the United Arab Republic, Syria, Jordan and the Lebanon, on the one side, and Israel on the other, in the supervision and observance of the terms of the Armistice Agreements concluded between them. At present there are ten Irish officers serving with the Organisation. I am happy to say that one of our officers was recently appointed Chairman of the Israel-Syria Mixed Armistice Commission. Irish officers have been serving with United Nations observation missions since 1958 when fifty officers acted in this capacity in the Lebanon. Since then, small numbers of officers have also served in West New Guinea and on the India-West Pakistan border. All these officers have made and are making a very worthwhile contribution to the work of the United Nations.

As Deputies are aware, I visited recently Irish troops serving in Cyprus and the Middle East. During the course of my visit to Cyprus, I had an opportunity of inspecting their camps and of speaking to many of the officers and men. I found everywhere that morale was high, that the health record was excellent and that the troops were doing a difficult job and doing it very well. During a few of the winter months weather conditions in Cyprus can be cold and wet, but, despite this, the troops go about their work cheerfully and with a will. While most of the accommodation is either under canvas or in semi-permanent huts, the United Nations has endeavoured to make the quarters as comfortable as circumstances permit and improvements in progress were noted by me. The men themselves take a very active part in the actual carrying out of these improvements and they also manage to make their surroundings as cheerful and attractive as possible. Indeed, I was greatly impressed by their industry and skill in this direction and their capacity to make the best of the situation.

I had discussions with the Force Commander on the subject of accommodation and I believe that the improvements in hand and contemplated will leave things in a reasonably satisfactory state. It will be appreciated that the United Nations mandate in Cyprus has never been for longer than six months at a time and that the aim is to arrive as soon as possible at a situation where it can be ended altogether. In these circumstances, and having regard to the financial and political implications, I can well understand the reluctance of the United Nations to embark on a large scale programme for the provision of permanent, or even semi-permanent, accommodation. I am satisfied that the United Nations is doing its best to strike a fair balance in its handling of the accommodation problem. I did not have an opportunity of inspecting the accommodation of other contingents, but I was assured that contingents in similar locations to the Irish are similarly accommodated.

Duty at observation posts is arduous but many of our troops to whom I spoke expressed a liking for it. While various factors, such as urban, rural and topographical conditions, local tensions and the occurrence of incidents, must necessarily affect the demands made on the personnel, it can be stated that all contingents are on an equal footing as regards duty.

In the course of my visit to the Middle East, I met all the ten Irish officers serving with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation and I had an opportunity of seeing something of their operational conditions. These officers are mostly employed on observation duty on the various cease-fire lines, work which can be both delicate and difficult. I am happy to say that these officers are doing a wonderful job for the United Nations. I found them in good health and spirits. Incidentally, they rotate on a two-year basis.

Everywhere I went, I found the greatest goodwill towards the Irish troops and praise for their impartiality and fairmindedness. I would like to express the sincere wish that the efforts of the United Nations in those countries will soon meet with complete success.

It is a pleasure for me to record once again my appreciation of the public-spirited activities of many individuals and firms who continue to provide comforts for our troops serving overseas. Since 1960 the organisers of this laudable work have been providing, entirely on a voluntary basis, an avenue for persons and firms to express their appreciation of the contingents serving overseas and their goodwill towards the troops.

This may be an appropriate point at which to bring the House up-to-date in relation to the reimbursement of this country's extra and extraordinary expenses arising from the supply of contingents to the United Nations Forces. As regards Cyprus, it is estimated that by 26th June next, when the current extension of the United Nations mandate will expire, Ireland will have incurred a total sum of approximately £1,600,000 in recoverable expenses. Of that amount, claims amounting to £1,361,200 approximately, have been presented to the United Nations and a total of £887,500 has been refunded to date.

As regards the balance of approximately £473,700 outstanding against the claims already made, the Minister for External Affairs, on 8th February last, again gave the House the background to the situation in relation to allowances paid prior to 26th June, 1965, on which the Secretary-General has agreed to use his best endeavours to arrange for a refund. Representations for the refund of the balance outstanding are being pursued vigorously by the Minister for External Affairs. It will be noted that an amount of £248,800 has still to be claimed. This amount will be claimed as quickly as possible.

I do not think the full financial picture of our claims in respect of overseas service has been given up to now. As regards the Congo operation, our claims amounted to £1,680,000 odd for allowances, stores, etc. and these claims were fully met. A final claim, which covers odds and ends and will be for no more than a couple of thousand pounds, is being prepared. On the pensions side, claims amounting to almost £195,000 have already been made on, and met by, the United Nations in respect of benefits and expenses paid as a result of the death and disablement of members of the Defence Forces who served in the Congo. The only similar claim in respect of Cyprus, amounting to about £6,800, has also been met.

Before I leave overseas service, perhaps I should recall for Deputies that recently I made awards of the Distinguished Service Medal to 65 officers and men of the Permanent Defence Force arising out of service with the United Nations Force in the Congo. I am sure that Deputies will wish to join in congratulating the recipients of these awards which give an indication of the excellent service and devotion to duty of the Irish units which served in the Congo. It is, I think, now generally known that the award of the Distinguished Service Medal is not confined to service with United Nations Forces and that it may also be awarded in respect of appropriate acts or service in home stations.

Because of an improvement in the recruiting position, it was found possible recently to put a second corvette on fishery patrol duties. One corvette has been refitted for such duties, while another is undergoing a similar refit. The helicopter service, in addition to other duties, participated in 38 missions in 1966 involving the conveyance of emergency medical cases to Dublin hospitals. The apprentice training schemes at Naas and at Baldonnel, which are now very well known, continued as usual during the year, as did the schemes for the training of pilots for Aer Lingus at Gormanston Camp and the nautical training of fishermen at the Naval Base, Haulbowline.

The Army Equitation Team participated in six international shows in 1966, and won five first prizes, one second, 12 third and eight fourth prizes, as well as 33 lesser prizes. Locally, 23 shows and 23 gymkhanas were attended, and a very large number of prizes won.

Turning to Civil Defence, I am glad to say that good progress has been made during the past 12 months. A National Control Centre from which warning and advice could be broadcast in a radioactive fall-out situation and which will facilitate the conduct of training exercises has been established in my Department.

Preliminary communication exercises, including the processing and plotting of simulated reports of radioactivity have been carried out with very satisfactory results.

A County and County Borough Mobilisation Scheme, setting out the Civil Defence resources in manpower and equipment available, is in course of completion by all county councils and county borough councils. This scheme represents a considerable advance in the organisation of Civil Defence at Local Authority level. I wish to take the opportunity to express my appreciation for the co-operation of the county and city managers and other senior officers of local authorities concerned in the preparation of this scheme.

In this connection I feel I should emphasise that the purpose of Civil Defence is to mitigate the effects of war on our people and that the operation of Civil Defence schemes within their functional areas is a statutory responsibility of local authorities. Many of the possible activities of Civil Defence would in fact be extensions on a very large scale of existing local authority functions, for example, hospitalisation of injured people and assisting homeless in getting shelter.

The recruitment and training of Civil Defence personnel generally have continued to be satisfactory during the past year. The training of instructors for local authorities, the Civil Service, Defence Forces and Garda Síochána was continued during the year at the Civil Defence School. A series of week-end "Methods of Instruction" sessions on a regional basis has been introduced with a view to improving the general standard of instruction. These sessions have proved to be of particular value to Civil Defence instructors who have already qualified as such at the Civil Defence School but who do not normally engage in instructional work. Short Civil Defence courses for civil servants which were introduced in 1965-66 have been completed by many Departments.

The policy of running week-end camps for Civil Defence, which gives excellent practice in mobilisation and movement of large numbers as well as opportunities for combined training, continues to receive excellent support from the volunteers. Local training, conducted by local Civil Defence instructors, continued at 340 centres during the year.

Considerable publicity by way of Dáil Question and otherwise was given to County Controls some months ago. I would like, therefore, to take this opportunity of saying that these controls represent a vital link in the Civil Defence system. Under operational conditions the county organisation would be directed from them by the County Controller, usually the county or city manager, and his staff — approximately 50 in each case.

Work is in progress on the establishment of a Regional Control, which will also be used as Dublin City and County Control, at Firmount House, Co. Kildare. As a result of further work there during 1967-68, the centre will be operational. Galway County Council has been authorised to proceed with arrangements for the incorporation of a county control in the basement of a proposed new technical school at Moneenageisha. With regard to other county controls, a number of local authorities are ready to proceed with the work.

Throughout the past year the Irish Red Cross Society was, as usual, actively engaged in its commendable humanitarian work, and it is with pleasure that I record again my appreciation of the efforts of the members of the Society in this regard.

During 1966 the Society donated over £11,000 towards the relief of hunger in India. The bulk of this considerable donation was made up of spontaneous contributions from the people of Ireland. The Society also contributed foodstuffs and clothing towards the alleviation of hardship caused by flooding in Italy. In addition, during European Refugee Week in October, 1966, it raised £3,000 for the benefit of refugees in African and Asian countries. It now has 17 refugees from North China at Naomh Aindrias Home in Dublin.

As to the details of the Estimates, I have already mentioned the tenth round increases which came into operation last year. The effect of these is shown by the provisions in the major pay and allowances subheads — Subheads A, B, C, D and F. The Estimate is based on an average strength of 1,178 officers, 87 cadets and 7,150 noncommissioned officers and privates — that last figure being slightly higher than the average strength during 1966-67. The provisions for stores and services are higher than last year's because last year, for economy reasons, the provisions were not as high as I would have wished. The sums being provided represent essential minimum requirements which were determined only after the most careful examination. I do not think it is necessary for me to go over the various subheads in detail. Specifically, however, I may mention, that provision is being made for the building this year of six houses for married soldiers at Limerick, and for further improvements in accommodation and dining facilities for soldiers in barracks.

The Estimate for Army Pensions is for the sum of £2,539,000, which is slightly lower than last year's figure. While the provision for Defence Forces pensions continues to increase, there are inevitable reductions under other subheads as those in receipt of pensions in respect of the 1916-1923 period decline in numbers. As well, with the passage of time, many more special allowance holders than formerly are over 70 years of age and are eligible for old age pensions, especially contributory pensions, so that, while over 9,000 special allowances are being paid at present, there is a slight decrease in the average rate of allowance and the overall cost has not gone up in proportion to the numbers.

Applications for the Service (1917-1921) Medal continue to be received in large numbers. There were more than 700 applications in 1966, and a further 170 have been received in the first three months of this year. Here I should like to repeat briefly what I said last year — that many people seem not to be applying for the Medal until they feel in need of a special allowance. If this trend continues, many applicants will be disappointed eventually, because former officers will not be available for consultation and so the applications will not be capable of being investigated. This difficulty has arisen already and is increasing. It would be well, therefore, that former members of the Old IRA and other organisations of the 1916-1923 period who feel entitled to the Medal should delay no longer in applying for it.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

I wish to join with the Minister in offering our congratulations to the armed forces for the magnificent work they have done in the service of the United Nations. It was but right and proper that the Minister should have gone abroad and have an opportunity of inspecting our troops in the manner he has described to us. In doing so, he was merely showing not only the appreciation of the Minister and the Government but the appreciation of the Oireachtas and the Irish people of the magnificent work they are doing. We are glad to hear of so many recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal. We all know the traditions of the Irish Army down through the years and it comes as no surprise to us to find that those officers and men have been found worthy of receiving this medal. However, I wonder has the medal been awarded to those who served in the Congo.

Mr. Hilliard

The medal has not been awarded but the awards have been made to men who served in the Congo.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

And the medals will be awarded?

Mr. Hilliard

They will.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

That is right and just. I am very glad to hear from the Minister that those men who gave such distinguished service in the Congo will be honoured in the manner in which their colleagues in Cyprus have been honoured. Having said that, I should like to come to the Army at home. I am afraid there has been no new thinking since the establishment of the State on the manner in which our Army is being run. In going through the Estimate, I note that almost one-twelfth of the Estimate, in other words, one pound out of every £12 voted for Defence, is being paid to civilian employees.

I pointed out when dealing with the Supplementary Estimate that when the Army was first founded away back in 1922 and when we were at the height of that tragic Civil War, four Army officers or paymasters with a staff were sufficient to pay the entire Army. Here now we have not only Army paymasters but civilian paymasters checking their accounts: we have the Department of Defence, who are the civilians of course, the Department of Finance and the Comptroller and Auditor-General. We could depend entirely on the quartermaster staff of the Army to pay the personnel of the Army and to keep proper accounts without a civilian counterpart in the Department of Defence. That is something I advocated previously and something which we would have to do in time of an emergency or in time of civil or international warfare. It is something which we should practice now and thus cut down expenses.

When I make the suggestion that the personnel of the Army should become their own quartermasters and paymasters, may I quote an example of how the civil branch of the Department of Defence can make a mess and muddle of things? It is in relation to grazing in the Curragh. Under a very old Act, 1872, the Board of Works administered grazing rights in the Curragh whereby adjoining farmers were entitled to graze one sheep per acre on the Curragh Camp land. Some short time ago the administration of this was taken over from the Board of Works by the civil branch of the Department of Defence. The regulations they made were so chaotic, as one circuit judge recently said, that any person who wants to do so may now graze sheep on the Curragh to the detriment of those who were traditionally entitled to graze sheep on those lands. That is one example of what a mess the civilian side of the Department has made in administering something in regard to which they had no experience.

May I come back once more to the question of the Defence Forces as a striking force? We all hope that our Defence Forces will never be used for anything other than defence. I still believe, however, that a small active mobile force based on the Curragh, highly trained, the nucleus of a reserve or civilian army, as it were, would serve this country much better than the present system. At the moment our Defence Forces are scattered over many barracks throughout the city of Dublin, Victorian barracks on which no funds have been spent for years. The forces are therein engaged on guard duty, fatigues and so on. There is no scope whatsoever for what should be their main function, namely, that of soldier. These men should be removed from the city and concentrated in the Curragh. The barracks should be handed over to Dublin Corporation to be used as building sites or car parks. That would avoid the expense of upkeep on these ancient Victorian monuments. The Minister should consider this suggestion. One barracks should be retained as a military headquarters. There should be no difficulty about that.

Certain personnel should be retained in the city for ceremonial purposes. Why do we hide our Army? I know men who have reached 20 years of age who would never have seen an Irish soldier, were it not for television. I do not know why we should hide our Army. All we ever see outside Leinster House even is a military policeman. Why do we not have a proper guard with due ceremonial? Years ago, when I was a student, one of the things we went to see was the changing of the guard outside the Bank of Ireland. That was an attraction. I believe it was one of the cheapest and best advertisements a recruiting officer could have. The Minister should look into this. No matter what magnificent work is done on the Curragh, it is not seen by the general public. The most the ordinary citizen sees is the small parade on St. Patrick's Day. Down the country the people have no hope of ever seeing a ceremonial parade.

The Minister made no reference to the FCA. There is, I think, a great potential in that Force. The FCA should be the First Line Reserve. Possibly it is intended to be that, but in actual fact it is not. The Minister said there are 18,000 personnel——

Mr. Hilliard

Effective.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

Effective personnel in the FCA.

Mr. Hilliard

Roughly.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

I accept that as a rough figure. I am fairly well acquainted with the FCA. I was an officer for many years in its predecessor, the LDF. I know the excellent voluntary work the FCA are doing, but they do not get the credit they deserve and the respect to which they are entitled from the Department of Defence.

Mr. S. Collins

Hear, hear.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

I do not include in that the military personnel. Last year a saving of a few paltry thousands of pounds was made by refraining from calling up the FCA for annual training. That should never have happened. We should not be afraid to spend money on the FCA. Not only should they be remunerated properly but they should have all the comforts and amenities to which the ordinary soldier of the line is entitled and which he receives. I appeal to the Minister to do what he can on behalf of that particular line of defence, the FCA.

Some of the barracks allocated to the FCA have been allowed to fall into decav. Such property should be disposed of and there should be one county depot for each FCA battalion. It is a disgrace that Rockhill House in Letterkenny, which was occupied by the troops during the war and in which a magnificent chapel was built, has been allowed to fall into decay. The roof has been removed from the chapel. I regard that as desecration. It is a waste of public money to allow a chapel to fall into such a state of decay in 20 years that the roof should have had to be removed. We would be much better off if we scrapped all the military barracks in Donegal and concentrated on Finner Camp as a training depot for the FCA. The camp could be used for four or five months from spring to late summer.

I do not know what is being done with the forts on Lough Swilly. I understand there are some troops, or civilian personnel, occupying them. These forts are completely out of date. They should be dismantled forthwith and the guns sold as scrap.

There is one appeal I should like to make to the Taoiseach and his Government, through the present Minister for Defence. The Taoiseach is a Corkman. He is a man who holds no bitterness in his heart. That is my honest opinion. I appeal to him this year to permit the Army in the month of August to honour its commander-in-chief, General Michael Collins, at Beal-na-Blath. The Army is above politics. Whatever bitterness may have been engendered in the Civil War is now gone. It would be a nice gesture if our magnificent Army, of which we are all so proud, were permitted to attend at Beal-na-Blath this year. I make my appeal through the Minister to the head of the Government. Let bygones be bygones and let honour be seen where honour is due.

I have already referred to the Military College and to my opinion that it would be a good thing if it could possibly be made a constituent of the National University, or, alternatively, that the personnel, the potential commissioned personnel, serving there were given an opportunity of doing a university degree. I do not think there would be any difficulty about it and it is something which the Minister should consider. It would raise the standard, not that I suggest for one moment that the standard of our commissioned personnel is low, of our commissioned personnel. It would give them a broader outlook and would give them an opportunity of acquiring a degree which would be most useful to them in their post-service days.

On the question of our Naval Service, I am glad to see from the Minister's speech that a second corvette is now commissioned.

Mr. James Tully

That would gladden the heart of the late Deputy T. Lynch.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

Go ndéanfaí Dia trócaire ar a anam. I know it would gladden his heart, for he spoke about it often.

Mr. Hilliard

And he would not be satisfied.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

Indeed he would not, but it would be a tribute to him that a second one had taken to water.

Mr. Hilliard

God rest him.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

We all join with the Minister in that prayer. I wonder if, with due respect to the late Deputy T. Lynch, we could not adopt the attitude of his fellow and neighbouring Deputy, Deputy Esmonde, and try to procure a more up-to-date method of fishery protection than the antiquated corvettes.

Mr. S. Collins

They are outmoded.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

They are outmoded, out-of-date and antiquated, and I think we could do something better to procure a more efficient and up-to-date patrol boat such as that used by the British Navy during the war, which used to be known as the torpedo boat. It is fast and capable of approaching certain poachers without being observed. These boats should be dispersed along our coastline. It would be a difficult matter but remember how our lifeboat services are organised. We have a lifeboat service scattered all over the coastline at strategic points. On the lifeboats generally, only two of the crew are permanently employed by the National Lifeboat Institution. We could have small torpedo boats manned by crews of five, six or seven persons, with, say, two of them trained, one in gunnery and one in navigation and mechanics, and the remainder recruited and paid on an hourly basis during the hours when they are employed. I believe it would be possible to work such a protection service and it would be much more advantageous to our fishery protection than the present outmoded corvettes.

I should like to pay tribute to the personnel of our Naval Service. They are doing an excellent job with antiquated and undermanned ships. Something more could be done for fishery protection by employing these small, fast ships, possibly manned by two permanent members of the Defence Force and three or four members of the Reserve Force. They would be more of a surprise packet and less visible on the horizon than the antiquated steamdriven corvettes. It is something the Minister should consider. If such a ship were used in conjunction with our helicopter force, we could protect our fisheries more efficiently than we are doing. We have been told about the helicopter service in the Minister's speech and about the number of missions of mercy which they have operated. We should congratulate them on the magnificent work they are doing, but they could do more for fishery protection than they have done in the past. If they worked in conjunction and in close co-operation with fast torpedo boats, we would have less to fear from fishery marauders.

We should bear in mind that as a result of overfishing the Dogger Bank and the North Sea are now practically completely denuded of fish and that the last fishing ground of Europe is that area from the west coast of Ireland to the Atlantic shelf which is reckoned to be no more than 20 miles wide. We should ensure that these 20 miles, for the protection of which we are responsible, should be fully protected because in ten or 15 years' time, with the advance in fishing techniques, there is the danger that that area between the west coast of Ireland and the Atlantic Shelf will be completely overfished and even completely denuded of fish.

I would appeal to the Minister to do what he can on behalf of fishery protection by rethinking as to the type of boat that should be employed, the manner in which these boats should be manned, and on liaison between the air arm and fleet arm of our Defence Forces.

Turning to pensions, there is one difficulty from which some ex-Army pensioners suffer. Under the Defence Forces Pensions Scheme, pensions were paid and are being paid to ex-Army personnel. Under the Defence Forces Pensions (Amendment) Scheme, 1965, former officers of the Army who are pensioners and are in alternative employment and receiving remuneration in addition to their Army pension, and even where such employed people are remunerated from public funds, are not liable for an abatement of their pension; in other words, a man who serves in the Army and secures his pension and then takes up employment in some other position where he is remunerated from public funds.

Let me take an example. An Army officer retires and secures his pension and then takes up employment, say, in the Houses of the Oireachtas where he is paid out of public funds and his pension is in no way abated, and rightly so. But suppose that same officer who retired from the Army were entitled to a military pension, has received such a pension for his service in the Army and is entitled to a disability pension in addition to his military pension, then his military pension is abated and he does not receive the allowances to which he would be entitled if he were not disabled and in a position to take up employment which is remunerated from public funds. It is very unfair. I would appeal to the Minister to look into it and, if necessary, so amend the scheme, that such an officer will be entitled to his full military service pension and full disability pension, if he is entitled to both, without any abatement whatsoever.

The only other matter to which I should like to refer is what has now become known as the Old IRA pension, and disability allowance payable to Old IRA medal holders. As the Minister pointed out, the number of military service Old IRA pensioners is dwindling fast. Every day, reading through the death columns of the newspapers, we read of some veteran of the Black and Tan war having passed on. We have now celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the 1916 Rising. Very few of these veterans are left. Could we not, in God's name, give them a reasonable pension in their old age? It is disgraceful to think that some of those personnel are in receipt of a weekly pension as low as 25/-, and even less, and that when they come to draw the old age pension there is an abatement of their military service pension. They are now very few in number. We owe them a lot; let us try to remunerate them in some small way in their old age, by giving them some of the comforts they have been denied down through the years, but to which they are entitled, by increasing to a reasonable sum the pensions of which they are now in receipt.

Again, there should not be the delay in paying a disability allowance after application. It takes a considerable time to apply for and successfully receive an IRA military service medal. My experience is that from the date of application it is generally eight or nine months before investigations are completed and a medal awarded. If one then wishes to apply for a disability allowance, it is generally 12 months before such an allowance is granted. I quoted in this House before the case of an unfortunate man for whom I had been fighting for an allowance for somewhere in the neighbourhood of three years and the postman arrived with the first payment the day the corpse was being taken out of the house to the churchyard. Even though these are rare cases, they should never occur and a little co-operation between the Department of Social Welfare — who investigate these matters — and the Department of Defence would expedite the issue of these disability allowances.

A very big drive is carried out periodically for recruitment to our Defence Forces. We must ensure that those men who have given the prime years of their lives to the Defence Forces, when they retire after 21, 25 or 30 years' service, will be given, first of all, a reasonable pension, a pension commensurate with the service they have rendered and in proportion to the wages or salaries they received. First of all, an opportunity should be given to them to procure employment in the State, where such exists. Year after year, when this Estimate is being discussed, Deputies receive petitions from ex-soldiers who feel disgruntled, who feel they have not been properly treated, who feel something should be done for them — even commissioned personnel. The Minister should ensure that these people are properly remunerated when they retire. Further, it would be the greatest recruiting incentive one could possibly have if a serving soldier could turn to a prospective recruit and say — what Deputy James Tully and I knew it to be —"It is a gildy job; you can get into it because you know that when you are getting out of it, you will be satisfied".

Mr. James Tully

Like Deputy P. O'Donnell, I should like to be associated with the Minister's remarks about the members of the Defence Forces who have served abroad. They are doing an excellent job, but, as I said — I think it was last year on this Estimate — they are doing the job we expected they would do: we expected them to do well and they have been doing well. We should couple the soldiers serving in this country with them because it is a remarkable thing, when there is some excitement or activity, soldiers are appreciated, but when there is none in the normal peacetime, they are people who do not get a very high regard from the general public.

I am glad the Minister found time — indeed, as Deputy P. O'Donnell said, he was perfectly entitled and it was his right and his job to go — to go out to see how these people were getting on in both Cyprus and the Middle East and to show them that even though they were out there they were not being forgotten. I am a little disappointed, however, that he has not given a more thorough report on the conditions in which they are serving, because shortly after he came back, I asked him if it was true that in very inclement weather the members of the Irish Defence Forces in Cyprus were sleeping under canvas, canvas that was not of first-class material. The Minister said they were but he understood that members of the other defence forces were also sleeping under canvas. I believe that neither the Irish Force nor any of the other Forces should have been asked, in the wintry conditions which exist in places like Cyprus, to stay outside under canvas.

No matter what the extra cost, the United Nations should have provided some kind of solid shelter for them. The Government here should have made that clear to the United Nations either before or after the Minister's visit. His visit there must have done quite a lot to brighten up the spirits of people who were very far from home — the fact that he took the trouble to go out and see how they were being treated — but I still think something should have been done to ensure that the conditions in which they were living there would be improved.

I said last year — and I repeat it now — that for the size of our Army, we have done our share of peacekeeping in Cyprus, as we did in the Congo. The danger of being imposed upon is always there. I know it is a bit of excitement for very many soldiers, who welcome the chance of going abroad and seeing parts of the world they would not normally see. Even so, it has left our Force at home in a very depleted state. Even though the Minister today, and the Minister for External Affairs on a previous occasion, explained to us there were high hopes of a refund of the amount of money due to us from the United Nations, I wonder if we will find, at the end of 12 months, that this money has been refunded. There are two things about this; one is that having that sum outstanding for a long time, even if we get every penny of it back, will be a hefty drain on our economy, because this is money which has to be raised in another way. Secondly, the fact that the money outstanding and which has been outstanding for a long time may not be paid should be taken into consideration and other nations should be asked to do their share as we have been doing ours.

When the Supplementary Estimate was being discussed a few weeks ago, I referred to the fact that two Irish soldiers had been returned from Cyprus and the Ceann Comhairle said at the time it was a matter for the main Estimate. I do not want to embarrass anybody but the Army authorities here issued a statement to the effect that they were quite satisfied that no disciplinary action was warranted. I am prepared to accept that, but if that is so, why should these men have been sent home? After all, the two men have to live among their own people. I do not know if this was done to please somebody but if the men did not do anything, they should not have been sent home. I am disappointed that something further was not done about it.

The Minister referred to the Distinguished Service Medal. The medal is being awarded in certain circumstances and I suggest that in some cases there should be a cash award with the medal. There are occasions when a medal is of very little use, when a soldier would welcome something a little more useful, and if a soldier's service warranted the issue of such a medal, he should have some financial assistance as well. From the list published of the recipients of the medal, it appeared that the proportion of officers to NCOs and men was very high. Is it a fact that we have all very brave officers and not so brave men or was there another reason for this? I should hate to think that being officers entitled men in any Army to be considered braver than the men under them. Perhaps I am being unfair in this and if so, I feel sure the Minister will correct me.

Two extraordinary things appear from this Estimate. The first is that the Minister made very little reference to the Army at home and completely omitted to deal with the FCA. This was more than an oversight. It did not happen by accident. There must be a very good reason for it. The last thing we should do is to forget that even though we have soldiers serving overseas, we also have soldiers here at home who do a very good job. I should hate to think that the soldiers at home would be given the impression that they are people who do not count, who warrant less than half a page in the Minister's statement when he comes to deal with not a paltry sum of money but £11,699,000, quite a substantial sum. I was most disappointed there was not more reference to our soldiers at home.

We have had the old gripe for years about the uniforms and the boots. Uniforms have been improved and they are better. That was a big step forward but I still think the footwear is in the past. The Minister, I suggest, should continue the good work. Having started at one end, like the old man down the country who when he polished the tops of his boots, thought he was well dressed and forgot that there were heels on the boots, the Minister should not stop. There was not much point in improving the uniforms and not the boots. It does not look well. There should be walking-out boots to go with the uniforms and be an attraction.

I am not quite clear about the weapons used by the Army here, but I think we still depend a lot on the old-type rifle. Having served abroad, quite a number of our soldiers are not equipped with modern-type rifles and machine-guns. If we are to justify the existence of our Army at all, we must spend a considerable amount of money on the replacement of weapons which must be kept up-to-date and the old ones disposed of. It is little use training an Army to fire single shot rifles when the armies of the world are using a very different weapon.

Uniformed soldiers seem to have disappeared from our streets. Perhaps there are more civilian passes than there were in our day but a soldier in uniform nowadays is the exception, even in the neighbourhood of Army barracks. I agree with Deputy P. O'Donnell that Army Bands should be seen more often in public. I do not know whether the existence of the Army Band is to be discouraged—are we heading to the day when there will be no replacements and the bands will disappear? —but I suggest every effort should be made to show Army Bands in public. The Minister may say that was all right for recruitment purposes and that we are not now anxious for recruits. That may be so but the public image, the morale of the Army, must be kept up and the way to do it is to show it in its best light. I suggest that the Minister revert to the old idea of allowing the Army Bands to appear at sports meetings and what have you, to show them in public.

I have another complaint. There is not enough sport in the Army of today. During the Emergency, there were, of course, many more men in the Army and consequently many more sportsmen in the Army. We could very well revert to that idea so that each unit would have teams under the various codes to play in competition with civilian sportsmen outside and show that they can hold their own in the best company. It would do an immense amount of good.

Deputy P. O'Donnell suggested that the Army should be moved more down the country from the city. I do not agree with him because I think it would cause a tremendous upset to a lot of people. I agree there are far too many old barracks retained in Dublin and indeed in the country. They could possibly be brought into one central barracks in the city, but it would be a mistake to move more than a small number outside the city. After all, in a time of danger, it is the city that must be defended. Guard duties have to be carried out but I am afraid there are too many guards being carried out for the sole purpose of giving fellows something to do.

I wonder what is in the Magazine Fort. Is most of the equipment there so useless that bows and arrows would be more effective if there was need for the use of arms? During my time in the Army, some of the stuff being taken in there was rejected British arms, rejects from the battles in Europe and from all over the place being dumped in there and protected as if they were gold, so precious that they had to be guarded in case somebody would steal them. Most of it was useless old stuff, though dangerous. The Minister should get somebody to have a look at the stores there, which include some explosives. Somebody did have a look at them some years ago and took some away but we should see to it now that what is there is reasonably useful and not rubbish.

The old question of the accommodation of Army personnel was raised and the Minister said he proposes to build half a dozen houses. I mentioned on a number of previous Estimates that the Army authorities have been dodging the column when it came to the question of providing housing for our defence personnel. I do not see any reason in the world why many more modern houses have not been built. If they were, local authorities would not be in the position in which they have to look for accommodation for married soldiers who for years have been living in a certain place. The local authority to which I belong, and to which the Minister belongs, in County Meath, have been very decent as far as soldiers are concerned. In the Gormanston area, they do their best to house them. I honestly believe that the Army itself could do a lot more to alleviate hardship for those soldiers. Even in Gormanston, many married soldiers are living in the camp whilst their wives and children are living in neighbouring towns and villages because there is no accommodation for them. That should not be so.

There is also the question of people who have been discharged, the overholders. This is a big problem. Some of them have been there for so long that even at the low rate of rent which is charged, their gratuities are gradually being dissipated. There is nothing they can do and nothing the Army can do. The Minister should make arrangements with local authorities in the different areas so that a certain number of them would be taken over. This would relieve congestion. Originally the houses were built for serving soldiers. Now the serving soldiers are unable to obtain those houses because these people are in them.

With regard to the question of jobs, I was surprised to learn that men leaving the Army were not given any preference for jobs, even State or semiState jobs. This is a pity. Men who have served in the Army for a number of years, and who are discharged, should most certainly be entitled to some preference as against civilians who have had the opportunity to do reasonably well in their own jobs before those people appeared on the labour market.

There is a very excellent organisation of which the Minister could very well make much more use, the Organisation of National Ex-Servicemen. The Minister could make arrangements with that organisation which would result in a number of State jobs being made available to the organisation. They in turn could make those jobs available to the soldiers who are unemployed. It is not asking too much that this should be done. I honestly believe that those men are entitled at least to that type of consideration.

With regard to the question of men leaving the Army and not being able to obtain jobs in outside employment because they have been declared medically unfit, something should be done about this matter. Some of those men have a clean ticket during their life in the Army but when they apply for jobs outside, they are medically examined and are declared unfit for employment. As a result of this, those men have been unable to obtain employment, even though they have been found fit for the job. This is something on which the Department could do very much more than they are doing. If men are discharged from the Army and are found to be medically unfit for jobs in outside life, they should be declared medically unfit and should get some compensation by way of an increased type of pension or some disability pension.

I received a letter on 31st March relating to a man who was in the Army. He served with the military police from 1922 and all through the Emergency. I do not know whether the treatment he received had anything to do with the fact that he served with the military police or whether there is anything against serving in the military police. This man was on hunger strike with the late Terence McSwiney for 75 days. He was a hospital case in the 1920s. During his service he was in very good health. His rank was actingcorporal. On discharge after 22 years' service, because of the fact that he was not a full corporal, he was discharged as a private. The pension of an actingcorporal under the 1927 Act was 14/- a week. There have been improvements in this because of percentage increases but this pension is still an awfully small amount of money. Even if the pension increases were 300 per cent, this man would be receiving a very small amount in pension. Would the Minister review cases like this where men after long service go out on a very small pension? Apparently they cannot possibly improve the situation unless there is a change in legislation. This man does not need it because he is dead.

With reference to this question of discharge also, there is the situation of a man who is discharged and if he is an NCO or a private, he gets no gratuity but officers get a gratuity. I do not know why it has been decided that an officer should get a gratuity—I am not complaining about the fact that an officer gets such a gratuity—and that a soldier, whether an NCO or an ordinary man, who has been a long time in the Army should get a miserly pension on going out but no gratuity.

Mr. S. Collins

It is monstrous.

Mr. James Tully

If you look at the Civil Service, you will find that every section gets a gratuity. There was a question down last week which showed the tremendous number of people who were in Civil Service employment in the Department of Defence. They must be needed or they would not be there. Would the Minister tell me, when replying, if there is any such ordinary civilian, no matter how low his category, who does not get a gratuity or pension on retirement? We find that the men whom they were appointed to look after, when they go out of the Army, get only a few shillings in their pockets by way of pension and no gratuity of any kind. Those people get a very small pension. This is something at which the Minister could very well have a look with a view to some arrangements to have it fixed up.

There is another question which has arisen, that is, people on special allowances and Old IRA pensions. Reference has been made to the fact by Deputy O'Donnell that when some of those people write into the Department, they have to wait a long time before they get a decision. My complaint is that if I write into the Pensions Section of the Department of Defence, it is a long time before I get a reply. I do not know why this should be so because I have always been most courteous with the officials of the Minister's Department and any letter I have written has been an attempt to explain fully what the situation is. I do not see why there should be such a delay in replying to a letter which I send in to the Department. It does not affect me but it affects the people for whom I am making representations.

Mr. S. Collins

The Deputy must be too polite.

Mr. James Tully

There is an old man down in Kells, for whom I made representation—I am sure the Minister is aware of this man—who had a small tailoring business years ago. This man got a special allowance. It was reviewed three times in a period of six months. He got an increase; then he got a reduction; and then he got an increase again. Eventually a social welfare officer, I expect, at the request of the Minister, went along to the man and succeeded in getting him to agree that he was earning £2 a week. This old man received food from people whose clothes he mended. Some of those people could not afford new clothes. The allowance was completely taken from this man.

I know this man and I know the Minister knows him as well. This man is very often hungry. It is scandalous that somebody should go to the trouble of reviewing this pension three times in six months. I expect those reviews cost as much as the small pension this man would receive for the entire six months. He is not without it. I do not expect he will need it much longer as I expect he will die shortly. I will give the Minister his name if he is anxious to have it.

Mr. Hilliard

I do not know whom the Deputy is talking about.

Mr. James Tully

I am talking about McGilligan. The Minister knows him perhaps better than I do.

The FCA has been mentioned by Deputy P. O'Donnell but not by the Minister. He completely ignored the FCA in his opening speech. Why was that? Was there any reason? Is it because the FCA are now to be swept under the carpet and it is no longer important to talk about them? I know the FCA officers recently seemed to have a difference of opinion with the Minister and his Department over the setting up of an organisation. Whether they are right or wrong I am not competent to judge. Personally I believe that if they have some kind of vocational or voluntary organisation they wanted to set up for the purpose of looking after certain interests, I could see nothing very wrong with that but obviously the Minister did see something peculiar about it and therefore shot it down. I do not think that is the way to encourage these people.

The position as I see it is that the numbers in the FCA are very much smaller in fact than they are on paper. My second point is that there are a number of people in the FCA for years on top of years, excellent fellows who take their job very seriously and who do everything possible to be what they are supposed to be, a second line of defence. They do everything they can and the Department should encourage them to feel more important than they will feel after reading in the newspapers this document which the Minister has produced today.

I also think there must be an improvement in the type of uniform they are wearing. It is a dirty old baggy thing. No matter how well made a man may be, he certainly will not look a soldier in one of those uniforms. Again, the type of weapon with which he is issued is the old single Lee Enfield or 300 American-style which would be very little use and the man using it knows it. For God's sake, treat them seriously and give them the impression that they are, in fact, important people. I am quite sure the results would be very much better than they are at the present time. I hope they will get their two weeks training this year. If the Minister and the Department want to tighten up then, for goodness sake, tighten up on those who do not qualify for the two weeks but give those who are really serious about it the best you can give them. It certainly will not go to waste.

There are a number of odds and ends I wanted to refer to. The first is the question of a man who has a military service pension. It was decided many years ago as a result of wounds he suffered that he had a certain percentage disability which has been gradually getting worse and worse. It has progressed from 20 per cent or 30 per cent and is now 60 or 70 per cent. I asked the Minister's Department if it would be possible for this man to get treatment in St. Bricin's Hospital because he has to get regular hospital treatment. The reply was that the hospital was reserved for people whose condition could be improved but since his particular disability had been permanently decided at a certain percentage, there was no point in taking him to the hospital and there was no intention of offering him this type of treatment.

There are a number of these people in the country. The Minister probably knows this. They are very aggrieved. The Army decided this man was 20 per cent disabled. He knows and his doctors will certify that the percentage of disablement has risen to 60 or 65. Would there be any possibility of having another look at this and, no matter what the Army decide was the amount of disablement, deciding that such men are entitled to be taken in and receive the necessary treatment? The treatment must be given to them free because a number of them, if they have not got a medical card, have to pay a certain amount which they can ill-afford.

I come now to the insurance of Army lorries. I brought a case to the Minister's attention recently where an Army lorry knocked down a boy cyclist. The boy is still attending a doctor and a hospital. I do not know who was right and who was wrong but I know this; if it were a civilianowned lorry, the insurance company would make some arrangements about payment of the boy's medical expenses and indeed any loss he would incur. Because it was an Army lorry, apparently it has been decided that he is not entitled to any type of compensation. I am told the driver disclaimed responsibility. When there is an argument between an Army driver and a 12 years-old boy who did not see where the lorry came from, it is easy enough to disclaim responsibility. I am not saying the driver was wrong. I am saying the same rules should apply to Army trucks as apply to civilian trucks. Even if they are not insured, the same type of treatment should be given to the people who are involved in accidents. It is too bad that this little lad appears to be in the position that he must accept that fact that he is suffering from an injury which will take a long time to heal, if it ever does, and in the meantime, his father out of whatever little he has, must pay for the treatment. I am not trying to apportion blame. I am just bringing the matter to the attention of the Minister.

Now I come to a hardy annual. Beside Gormanston Camp there is a house owned by a man who has a family. He has attempted to get ESB connection. If he were anywhere but where he is, beside the camp, there would be no difficulty; he would get connection in the normal way. Some years ago he was told he could not have it because the overhead wires would interfere with planes. The funny thing is that there are wires—they may be better trained—from the top of the huts, the officers' mess on the inside of the camp to the local church. They do not appear to be any danger to planes at all but the wires leading out to this man's house would interfere with planes. It was suggested he would have to have underground cable. The ESB wanted a £12 bi-mensal charge for this underground cable. In the meantime, houses on the other side of the camp have got connection at the normal charge but despite the fact that the Department of Defence and the ESB have been dickering over this for a number of years, this man has not got his ESB connection. I would ask the Minister, if he would not mind, to take this up with the ESB and see if connection can be made to the man from the Army hut which is beside the gate and about 15 to 20 yards from the man's house, There is no reason why that should not have been done in the first place. The man is prepared to pay the normal charge. He does not want his current free.

Reference has been made to Civil Defence. Last year and the year before I was very critical of Civil Defence. I still have very mixed feelings about it. I feel the potential is very good but that there is a lot of cod talked about the strength of the Civil Defence organisation. We are told about what the county managers and their officials will do in the event of atomic attack but I would not like to be depending on these people if an attack came. I think this is a question where quality rather than quantity is what the Army should look for. I think that trying to give the impression that there are literally thousands of people in each county bursting to serve in Civil Defence can be disproven by just checking on the actual number of people who attend parades.

There should be some incentive to the people concerned to encourage them to join the classes. Instead of taking whatever comes, there should be a strict rule that only those who are able and willing to do the job will be accepted into the organisation. I am quite sure that on that basis the numbers would grow much more quickly than at present. A lot of money is being spent on Civil Defence and we are not getting the proper return. I am not blaming local officers, who are spending a lot of their time trying to generate enthusiasm which is not forthcoming. While some areas have made a good job of it, in most parts of the country the number taking part is very small, despite what the books may say. I am not criticising them; I am just saying that that is the position.

Mr. S. Collins

Not in my area.

Mr. James Tully

There are areas where they are doing very well but unfortunately there are others where that is not the situation. There is one subject to which I wish to refer and of which most people fight shy. There is a mistaken view in regard to this matter. Nobody likes Army deserters but during the Emergency a lot of young people joined the Army—many of them very young—and they got out as soon as things began to get rough, and in a number of units they did get rough, and very rough. Most of them went across the Border into Northern Ireland, or crossed to England and some of them joined the British Army. Many of them were afraid to come back. Some of them have married and have reared families and established businesses and after 15 or 20 years, it appears rather odd that the Army still retains the right, if these people return to this country, to try them and to invoke the full rigours of the law. I have brought a number of cases to the notice of the Minister and I have received a reply, not from the Minister but from the Secretary of the Department. He did not exactly tell me to mind my own business but he went as close to it as I suppose he felt safe and he pointed out in each case that as far as these people were concerned if they came back, they would be tried according to the law.

As I said, I do not hold any brief for deserters—a person who does not do what he promises to do is not worth a lot—but there are exceptions, and in cases where young people got involved and have been away for a long time, it does not do them, their families or the country any good to say: "If you come home from England, we will seize you, try you by court-martial and if you are convicted, jail you"—I do not know if it is still in the "glasshouse"—"for 156 days." The time has come when the Minister could very well say in regard to deserters, particularly of the Emergency period and particularly with people who have been absent from the country for over ten years, that it is rather ridiculous to be waiting still to pounce on them coming in from England by boat or plane. The Minister may have his own views on this but I would ask him to have another look at the matter because there is a way of dealing with the problem other than action of that sort.

Mr. Dowling

I should like to join with Deputy P. O'Donnell and Deputy Tully in congratulating the Minister on his initiative in visiting our troops overseas and seeing the excellent work being done in such places as the Congo, Cyprus and in the other theatres, such as Jordon and elsewhere, by our Army personnel. The fact that we have been selected as a country to supply troops is an indication of the high regard people far beyond the borders of this State have for the efficiency and organisation of our officers, NCOs and men. We too, owe them a debt of gratitude for their services and for the manner in which they have kept the flag flying. They have created a wonderful impression for which there has been nothing but the height of admiration.

In regard to this Estimate I agree with Deputy O'Donnell that new thinking is required. We have arrived at the point where we have a wealth of information at our disposal and arising from the experience we have gained overseas, I believe that the existing Army structure, based on the structure of 1922, is far from what is required today. We will have to streamline our organisation to meet this new challenge and in order that our services will be on a par with other countries, and not be thinking in terms of the past, but rather in terms of the future. There are two factors which the Minister should examine: the first is in relation to the civil servants and the second, to senior Army officer personnel. Civil servants and Army personnel are capable people who have carried out their duties to their full limits but if the Minister seeks information, I am sure that the civil servants quote regulations to him and the senior Army officers are in a position to stop anyone who challenges them. This is an unsatisfactory situation and one which requires to be examined comprehensively with a view to having a realistic assessment of the position.

Another matter is the extension of the retirement age for officers. We hope that advice in this regard will not be sought from people who themselves have limits, age-wise. We should not accept the position that regulations are in existence and even if they are bad, they will still be applied, no matter what the impact may be. We must change the regulations in order to cope with the problem which exists.

I could quote hundreds of problems that exist in the Defence Forces and which need to be rectified, regulations that need to be changed and so forth, and I am sure the Minister, with the information available to him and with the knowledge of problems that have been brought to his attention and to the attention of his Department, is in a position to produce a comprehensive packet for anyone who would care to sit down and examine it in order to bring about a change for the better. Last year I mentioned the ratio of civilian personnel to Army personnel. This is overloaded on the civilian side. I suggested that the retiring age should be extended for officers because many duties which are being carried out at the moment by civilian personnel, such as those mentioned by Deputy O'Donnell in relation to Army pay, could be carried out by Army officers if this was done and would give them further time in the Defence Forces so that they would not be cast on to the labour market at a time when great hardship can be caused to some families. This is an involved question. I am sure that senior Army officers who sometimes feel a challenge would be reluctant to say that this is a good idea. It is a matter that should be examined immediately so that in any future extension brought about——

Mr. S. Collins

I do not think that the difficulty lies with senior Army officers.

Mr. Dowling

That may be. The resettlement of ex-servicemen is one of the most vital and important matters we have to face up to. At the moment we have little or no regard for the resettlement of ex-servicemen. As Deputy Tully indicated, when a man leaves the Army, few are concerned about his future. I referred previously to the type of job taken up by the majority of pensioners who have given loyal and efficient service over an extended period and it is not the type of job we want to see our ex-servicemen in. We want to see them trained and retrained to meet the labour market requirements on a par with people who have not served the nation. In the new Industrial Training Act, there may be some provision whereby that situation can be examined, and under which men can be trained or retrained to meet the future with some skill in excess of that of the ordinary person, and under which they can be retrained to fit in an effective manner into the industrial structure.

Last year there was a suggestion about the creation of a director of technology to examine the problems of these men, and to assess the situation in regard to the limitations which will be applied as the years go on. As we know in relation to housing, most of the people who are in married quarters, and who are now overholders, are there because of lack of advice, lack of communication, lack of information, or lack of facilities to assess the situation. Most people who are in married quarters are men whose families have married and gone away and are no longer with them. They do not qualify for housing by the local authority. These men should be advised at an early stage and told: "This is the situation that faces you. You are entitled to various assistance by way of settlement grants and grants available from the State and the local authorities. Now is the time to build for the future and to equip yourself so that when you leave the Army you will have a home to go to."

I believe this is an important aspect, and I believe we should have another look at it. There should be someone in the service to see that in the fields of housing and employment, the men are equipped with the necessary information and assistance if they want to procure their own homes before they are too old, and to ensure that they would have all the information possible in relation to the facilities that are available. He would also deal with employment and assess the men's ability, skill, and potential, and ensure their training in order to meet the needs of the labour market, so that they would have something that would be of assistance to them when they are thrown on the big, cold, open labour market.

At the moment when a man leaves the Army, if he applies to the local authority for a job, he is told that he is too old. After he has given 20, 25 or 30 years' service in the Army, he is told that he is too old. That is an undesirable situation which must be tackled by the Minister and the Department. No man who has served the nation loyally should be debarred from any type of employment because he is considered to be too old after his service to the nation.

There is also the situation in which a man gets pre-discharge leave. I consider this type of leave undesirable and in need of change. We are all in agreement about the resettlement gratuity mentioned by previous speakers. A little change in this would make it more suitable for the NCOs and men as against the present situation. I believe—and there are complaints—that a man who now goes on pre-discharge leave and decides to exercise his right to go back into the Army is demoted. There have been very many cases of demotion because men have exercised the right they have. That is wrong, and a practice that should be terminated immediately. People should be allowed to exercise their right and they should get back the rank they held prior to their application for pre-discharge leave. If the Minister does not desire to change the situation immediately, he should examine it in its entirety, and ensure that persons on pre-discharge leave can do the necessary interviews and be employed in the Government services.

A person on pre-discharge leave may not be employed by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, but can be employed by CIE and various other organisations. That is wrong. These men need pre-discharge leave in order to settle themselves, and to make a home for themselves and their families. This was the aim and object for which it was designed in the first place. When a man has qualified for pension purposes and when there is a job going that would suit him, he should be able to apply and get the necessary release without any complications. There are cases where the necessary release was given, but there are quite a number of people who apply and who told me—maybe the information they were given was erroneous, or perhaps the people who gave them the information were not fully aware of the situation—that they would not be considered for various interviews.

Resettlement is a major problem and it is the best advertisement we have for recruiting personnel if it is known that people are properly resettled and given the necessary facilities for resettlement, and that they have a reasonable gratuity at their disposal with which they can start some type of business so that they can plan in advance. At the moment they are tied to this pre-discharge leave. This is unsatisfactory and it is a matter which should be fully examined by the Minister and his Department.

The question of overholders has been mentioned. Many of these men who have given long and efficient service and who are living in married quarters cannot obtain a job in any of the State services. They have had to move at the request of the various commanding officers, or because their tour of duty took them to various places. These people who are living in married quarters in Dublin or elsewhere, after they have completed their period for pension purposes, because they are overholders through no fault of their own, because of a lack of advice and guidance on equipping themselves for the future, are deprived of the opportunity of getting accommodation. That is another matter that needs examination.

A person who is an overholder should be given a reasonable time to get out of married quarters. He should be given six months or three months, or whatever the period may be, and should not be debarred from getting accommodation because he is an overholder. He has given efficient service to the State and for that reason the Minister should have another look at the question of overholders.

There is also the question of young soldiers living in this city and paying through the nose for sub-standard accommodation. Some of them have to pay £3 or £4 a week and after a few months, the wife has to go home to her mother in Tipperary, Kerry or other part of the country. This is a regular occurrence. I know it because these men come to me to get them some kind of accommodation. They are unable to get into married quarters because in many cases married quarters are being occupied by people who no longer have an interest in the service. We must find a way out for those people. We must meet the situation realistically and ensure that married quarters are provided for the people who are entitled to them. At the moment, there are many vultures only too happy to get their hands on an unfortunate person who wants a home at any cost. The Minister should take another look at this question of overholding and of married quarters generally. The quarters themselves leave a lot to be desired in many cases. That is not the Minister's fault. They are quite old. I think that, if we intend to retain them, they should have an added degree of comfort.

I do not agree with having married quarters within the barrack walls. I think that day is gone. We should utilise the services of the National Building Agency or of other agencies to produce flats outside the barrack walls such as those at Ballymun and the money for such work should not come out of the Minister's Estimate but should be charged against the Capital Budget. We have a duty to the people we wish to retain in the Defence Forces. There is the alternative of abolishing married quarters altogether and of giving the people concerned something in lieu and letting them find their own accommodation.

The accommodation we provide should be reasonable and should no longer be tied to the type of undesirable accommodation in some of the places where we have couples at the moment. There is a difficult housing situation at present. There is the question of overholders and then the necessary finances to erect married quarters are probably scarce. The Minister should seek to have provision made for these quarters other than in his Estimate. Money is provided for the building of houses for policemen and other people and the same attitude should apply to serving Army personnel. The Minister mentioned houses in Limerick.

Mr. Coughlan

What houses have been built in Limerick for the Army?

Mr. Dowling

The Minister mentioned six houses for married soldiers in Limerick and a further improvement——

Mr. Coughlan

There is a demand for 60.

Mr. Davern

Deputy Coughlan did not even know about the six houses.

Mr. Dowling

In McKee Barracks and at O'Higgins Road in the Curragh, and in various places where we built additional married quarters, a very creditable effort was made and a very creditable type of accommodation was provided. I believe that, within the Army service, in the Corps of Engineers, for example, we have men whose trades or callings could be utilised in the development of the building of houses, whether in batches of two, four or six or whatever the number. They have the ability and the capacity to do the work and we should utilise them. They proved that when called upon to build the extension to St. Bricin's and to do the reconstruction of Kickham Barracks, Clonmel, and other reconstruction work. I believe that this would be an excellent scheme for utilising the skills of certain Army personnel to provide and develop married quarters or other facilities for serving personnel. We have officers with the necessary qualifications. There is little now, except organisation, that could prevent us from reaching a situation in which we could utilise those people very effectively rather than have some of them engaged in sweeping dininghalls and other such work for which they are ill-fitted. We have men with qualifications which are not properly utilised. Then, again, we have people who are being pushed into jobs within the Defence Forces for which they are completely unsuitable but they are put in because of this little bit of push or pull that is there and that always has been there.

Mr. Coughlan

Deputy Dowling is stepping out of line, now.

Mr. Dowling

An overall examination of the position might bring about relief in this connection. I believe that many of our Dublin barracks should be disposed of. I see no reason why we should retain so many barracks in this city. They are old, ill-equipped and hard to heat. We must develop and equip ourselves to meet the future situation. These old barracks were designed to meet a situation that existed 70 or 100 years ago. Whether such barracks are located in Dublin, Mullingar, Clonmel, Kildare, Galway, Cork, the Curragh, and so on, the conditions are mostly not suitable for present-day requirements. Questions such as fall-out, and so on, are not catered for in any of our military installations. In other circumstances, we would probably have built and developed new barracks on the perimeter of the city and disposed of the rubbish we have and which has probably served well over the years but is not suitable for the requirements of the people today. We should look to that task now.

The barracks for the police in Templemore is an indication of clearcut thinking by a particular section in relation to the types of facilities that should be available. This was an Army barracks. Quite a substantial amount of money had to be spent on equipping it for another section of the State service.

Mr. S. Collins

It would have been cheaper to knock it down.

Mr. Dowling

I believe the same type of service should be made available for the Defence Forces as was made available for the Garda in Templemore, and possibly a higher service.

Mr. Coughlan

Deputy Dowling was never in Templemore in his life.

Mr. Dowling

Our Defence Forces give loyal service to the nation. They should get the same consideration as any other section. I disagree with Deputy O'Donnell when he says we should move them all to the Curragh. In my view, the Curragh should go with all the others. We should not put all our eggs in one basket. It would be unwise to put all our Defence Forces in the Curragh, to withdraw our troops from the various outposts in Mullingar, and so on, and just bring them to the Curragh. The Curragh could have many uses. I think it is not suitable for our present-day Army requirements anl certainly it will not be suitable for them in the future. It is a very vulnerable place. We would require a much larger Army to protect it with the type of equipment we have at present.

I believe the Curragh could be utilised as an industrial estate. I was there recently and I was appalled at conditions. Connolly Barracks and other places which at one stage were something one could look on with pride, are the worse for wear: there is quite a considerable amount of broken windows and destruction there now. That is a point we should further examine to ensure that, if we do not continue to use the Curragh and if there is no hope of using it in the future, we demolish whatever is not of value rather than leave barracks or sheds, and so on, there just for the purpose of employing somebody to keep them clean or to build them up again when they fall down. We should examine this whole matter so that in the future we shall give our servicemen the same facilities, consideration and understanding as was evidenced in the case of the Garda at Templemore.

I mentioned the extension of the age limit for the retirement of officers. This matter should be further examined and I would ask the Minister to look into it. These men come on the labour market at the age of 50 when most of their children are at college or university. Facilities are not available for absorbing them. There should be a placement service in conjunction with the Department of Labour which would apply to officers the same as to NCOs and men.

I also mentioned the appalling situation that NCOs and men do not receive the allowances granted to officers in respect of children receiving advanced education. It seems that we do not want the children of NCOs and men to receive such education. Surely the facilities available to an officer in this regard should also be available to NCOs and men? We hear a lot of talk about the need for education. We should do something to assist NCOs and men in this regard, even if it means extending the children's allowances during that period. It is a serious matter that the allowances should apply only to officers.

Last year I appealed to the Minister to grant an additional seven days' leave to NCOs and men. Again, officers are well catered for in this regard. They have a substantial amount of leave, but there is a severe limitation on that of NCOs and men. Today there is a substantial amount of extra duty to be done—a soldier's tour of duty is a 24-hour tour—and extra leave should be given. Because of the service in Cyprus, the Congo and elsewhere, a large volume of extra duty has been thrown on a small number of personnel and extra leave is therefore merited. The NCOs and men do more duty than the officer. The ratio is so great that something additional is required. They are not in a trade union and have no one to fight their cause, except the occasional Deputy who gets up here and speaks on their behalf—and the number who speak on behalf of this important section of the community is small enough. The Minister would be well advised to take into account the excessive hours of duty falling on them in recent years. While so many people outside have a five-day week and an eight-hour day, the soldier still has a 24-hour tour of duty. Yet there has been no allowance given to make up the discrepancy between the hours worked by those outside and the soldier's hours of duty.

The Naval Service is a joke. I said that last year and I repeat it now. It may be that when the money is available we will equip ourselves properly. We should put by a small amount each year to ensure we will have something available to buy the necessary vessels for fishery protection. If we are to take this problem seriously, we must deal with it in a realistic fashion. The fishing industry is an important one. We have pirates coming from outside countries who destroy our fishing beds and take the meals off the fishermen's tables. Indeed, fish has become so dear that it is taken from our own tables. If we had more protection, we would have more fish available for home consumption. I differ from Deputy O'Donnell about motor torpedo boats. We should have some type of dual-purpose vessel that would give the fishermen information about shoals and so on as well as providing fishery protection. It may be necessary to have civilian and military crews. There is no problem there. We have them ashore advising the Minister and there is no reason why we could not have them afloat. I do not think it is beyond our capacity to design a dual-purpose boat. Some contribution should be put aside each year in order to meet future requirements. The corvettes are outmoded and outdated and we should give the Naval Service some hope of having a new type of vessel in time. Even if we have to set up one of these many committees of experts to examine the problem, it might be a job well done.

In regard to the Air Corps, I should like to congratulate the helicopter service, which has done such magnificent work. The very efficient crews have saved a considerable number of lives. I believe helicopters are more effective for us than any other type of plane. We should have more helicopters for the purpose of rescue work as well as bringing back whatever information we require about the movements of personnel who might come here at some stage. Any equipment we purchase for the Naval Service or the Air Corps should be dual-purpose equipment, with a civilian as well as a military application, as in the case of the helicopters.

The completion of the Congo Plot in Glasnevin is long overdue and I would ask the Minister to expedite whatever arrangements are in hands. When I was up there recently, I met a number of foreigners who came here specially to see the plot where the men who gave their lives in the Congo are laid to rest. I was appalled to see a few bushes and a bit of wire netting around it. It does not do credit to ourselves or to these men. The sooner we undertake this work the better, in order to get the plot out of the unsightly condition it is in at the moment and give it an appearance befitting these men.

I should like to congratulate the people who got Distinguished Service Medals. I hope many more people will get the award, and I believe that will be so. We owe a great debt of gratitude to those who have received Distinguished Service Medals but no less to the great number of personnel who have served this country so loyally and so faithfully over the years and who did not get a Distinguished Service Medal. They have done magnificient work in upholding the good name of this nation and have shown that we have here soldiers who are superior to those in many larger nations.

I appealed to the Minister before— probably because I was a member of it —to consider giving a distinctive type of medal to members of the Volunteer Force. I have never heard any response to that, but I appeal to the Minister again. This was a Force that was recruited and served the country loyally and faithfully throughout the Emergency period. This Force had a distinctive uniform and was a distinctive unit. For that reason I would appeal to the Minister even at this late stage to give some distinctive medal to that Force which has now gone out of existence.

We now have the FCA, a welltrained and very efficient group who are giving their services on a parttime basis. Development of this Force is necessary and desirable. It is probably the cheapest form of defence we can have in order to meet our problems. The criticisms of the FCA which have been made by people outside who are opposed to it have caused an amount of discontent throughout the Force itself, people who have made complaints and who are trying to rectify problems other than through the normal channels and who in the course of doing this have endeavoured to instil a degree of suspicion in the members of the Force, which is very undesirable. The efficiency of the FCA is beyond question, and when we see them on parade and at various important functions, we cannot but be impressed by them. If there are problems to be rectified, we must face them honestly and ensure that justice is done.

In regard to Civil Defence, I should like to see this service embracing the whole community, including children. Whether in the secondary school or at the end of the primary term, children should be made conscious of fallout and other hazards. There are plenty of officers in this service well equipped to give lectures on this subject so that children can protect themselves and others, if the necessity should arise.

The Apprenticeship School at Naas has been mentioned. This has been a worthwhile effort and I congratulate the Minister on the steps he has taken to ensure the greater efficiency of this unit. I hope this idea can be extended to many other aspects of apprenticeship training. Many of our trainees from the Apprenticeship School in Naas have won premier awards not only in this country but outside it when they participated in competitions sponsored by foreign countries. This scheme should be developed and extended to other branches of the service.

I would again ask the Minister to look at the question of increasing Reserve pay and the question of promotion within the Reserve for NCOs. Once again, I want to congratulate the Minister on going and seeing for himself the conditions in which our personnel are serving overseas. I am quite sure that the comprehensive knowledge the Minister has now at his disposal in relation to overseas problems will enable him to deal more effectively with problems affecting serving personnel at home. I hope that this time next year he will have considered all the points raised by other speakers and myself and that he will be in a position to give some relief to those in greatest need.

Mr. S. Collins

In an atmosphere of non-controversy, it is sensible to discuss many of the shortcomings apparent in the Defence Forces. It was a very good thing that the Minister went overseas, and I think the Minister, as long as he remains Minister, and whoever his successor may be, should, if we have military personnel overseas, at least pay them the compliment of going to see them and to see the conditions in which they carry out their duties. I am informed—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that the only military personnel serving in Cyprus who are still under canvas are the Irish. I am sure it is possible to rectify that situation and I am sure the Minister will take steps to ensure that our standard is no lower than that of other participants in this peace-keeping Force.

We pay tribute, and properly, to the dedicated service these men are giving. We are fortunate that the opportunity arose for such service abroad because it provides a relief from the monotony and drudgery of Army life. It is time the battalions of "civvies" in the Department of Defence realised that we are now in 1967 and that we can no longer go on asking men to man outmoded barracks all over the country, carrying out tours of duty which are unreasonable, and trying to maintain barracks which are on the way to obsolescence. The cookhouse and fatigues form too large a part of Army life. They contribute largely to Army monotony. Someone will have to take a look at the overall situation and appreciate the contraction that must come in the maintenance and control of barracks by too few people in too many places.

As one experienced in all facets of Army life—private, NCO and officer in the National Army—I say the time has come when this appalling anachronism of no gratuity for the private and the NCO will have to be reviewed. This situation is unparalleled elsewhere. These NCOs and men are the backbone of the Army. They serve their time and they are then ejected into civilian society with a flimsy, inadequate low rate of pension. There is no gratuity. Let those who guard the purse take a look at their own personnel in the Department of Defence, their conditions of service and their emoluments, and see if there is any grade in that Department which is not entitled to some kind of gratuity to supplement pension for resettlement purposes when these people ultimately retire.

The whole approach has been wrong. Many of these NCOs and men are experienced in different administrative branches of the Army and they could effectively and usefully be absorbed into the civilian corps to help in the work there. That is particularly true at the captain-commandmant level. With their experience—their Q experience or their A experience—they could easily be absorbed and that would enable them to continue on to 65 years in gainful employment. There is a monstrous injustice in relation to the age at which serving officers leave the Army, an injustice leading to unrest to such a degree that many of the younger personnel, when they reach the age at which they can get their minimum pension, cast around in an effort to secure their future by getting a civilian occupation, with the result that too many leave the Army prematurely. We do not want to see that happen. I am quite sure the Minister and the other Members of this House do not want that kind of dissipation of trained Army personnel, personnel trained at substantial expense, and personnel which could give worthwhile service. I press this because I am constantly in touch with the problem. I represent an area which has always given generously to all ranks in the Army. West Cork, Cork city and county have always played their full part in giving generously to the Army.

These problems must be faced realistically. One has to assess where justice lies, remembering that the normal pattern in the Civil Service, the local authority, the teaching or any other profession is that men serve until they are 65. When there is an arbitrary limit in the Army, there is a moral duty on the State to find a way of escape for these people to enable them to continue in some kind of gainful employment. Thinking is archaic in the Department of Defence but something will have to be done to change that thinking. At the moment serving personnel who retire may have children still in secondary school or on the threshold of university. I am not saying this to gain any political advantage. I do not think this is a debate in which one should seek such advantage. This is a debate in which we should combine intelligence and goodwill in an effort to see if we can get some improvement for these men.

I have had close personal contact with the Army and its problems. The situation is complex and worrying. Promotion is limited. Only a handful of senior officers enjoy an age limit of 65. Most Army personnel can never hope to be colonel; very few can hope to reach the general rank—perhaps two or three—in any period of Army service. Therefore, you are dealing with a problem of personnel who have to retire on the arbitrary decision of what I describe as multiple drones of the Department of Defence, an arbitrary decision because in the provision of soldier-officer for the use of the country, there is a specific limit to the time each rank can serve. There is archaic thinking today and it is time we woke up to it.

On top of that, is it not time we had a look at the stores and equipment being bought for the Army? God protect us, some of it is as outdated as the hand mangle compared with the washing machine and spindrier combined. We have the position that we are trying to maintain the interest of serving officers in that outmoded equipment which was out of date even before the start of the last war, not to speak of the idea of modern rocket ballistics and intercontinental missiles. It is time we developed a proper perspective on where we are going.

I am staggered by the tremendous loyalty and dedication of the Army in spite of all this. It is with conscious pride that I come in here to urge this type of consideration on behalf of Army personnel. There are some of the finest types you will ever meet within the ranks of the men, NCOs and officers in our Defence Forces. They are entitled to the type of human consideration to which that dedication entitles them.

It is time somebody sat back and looked at the whole problem of the diffusion of personnel around the country and the multiplicity of archaic posts they have to try to keep open. My colleague, Deputy P. O'Donnell, mentioned the forts up in his country. There are many of them down in my country and it seems somewhat farcical that we will not do something about their demolition when we know that the ammunition for their guns will never be made again and that most of them are full of jelly and will never be fired again. Our coast artillery personnel have the monotony of having to check guns A and B for quantity of graphite or jelly, or whatever has been stuck up the bore, and boredom becomes the operative function of these repetitive exercises.

The Army is worthy of the best this country can give. We should do some straight thinking in that direction. Nowadays we are talking about bigger units, streamlining personnel, and all that kind of thing. Surely the time has come when we should give a real estimate of our needs in Army personnel and surely we can place them strategically and efficiently so that their tours of duty will be reasonable, their quarters will be comfortable and they will not be virtually fatigue parties for cleaning barrack? That is the feature I want looked into, not in a controversial but in a practical way, with a view to improvements being made.

We have discussed the Navy and, let us all be honest, it is nearly time that our corvettes were presented to some museum or other. That is what they are, museum pieces to be kept afloat by the overstrained and overworked personnel of a grand little corps. Fishery protection, my eye. If they did not break down halfway to the ground, they would not be able to catch anything. Let us be realistic. We could get a readymade, much more effective, modern type of vessel in the 90, 100, 120-foot class mounted with light armour that would do the fishery protection job infinitely better and, it seems to me, give certain current information service to people fishing around it. I think the naval personnel would welcome some kind of modern vessel, or near-modern vessel. They would provide infinitely interesting tours of duty and would not involve the same terrible strain on the personnel. I know, because I am living adjacent to the naval headquarters in Cork Harbour, what the strain is if they try to put two corvettes to sea with the naval personnel down there. I know from discussions I had with young fellows, good type young fellows, who left the naval service, that it was this excessive tour of duty, this overburdening of this willing personnel that has caused the gradual decline in recruitment to the Navy.

I shall not comment on that further than to say that these naval personnel, officers, petty officers and men, are proud of the service they give but they do feel that it is a little bit Gilbertian, if nothing else, trying to man these corvettes which are, strictly speaking, only fit for buying up by museums. You will not keep alive the high morale in such an admirable little force unless you give them something less archaic. There is an eerie-cheerie Cobh now if the corvette gets out of the harbour. There is no use in our trying to fool ourselves; that is the situation.

I agree with other speakers that the FCA get far less than the recognition they should get. They are our first-line Reserve now, and were the situation to arise in which we were faced with any type of upheaval, they are the people we would take in immediately for the purpose of augmenting our defences and doing the job. For some strange reason—not really so strange—the kind of bizarre treatment they get with regard to annual training, the kind of grandiose contempt with which some of the armchair soldiers treat them, does not improve their morale either. I am telling the Minister and his Department that the sooner they get back into that wing of our armed services the high standard of dedication and efficiency that was theirs, the better it will be for all of us, because to my mind, it would be impossible for us to carry on our present concept and organisation of defence without them. It would have been impossible for us to service our foreign forces and our peacekeeping forces abroad, were it not for the amount of service and training these men went through, which was utilised and was helpful in getting certain chores done around barracks and keeping other personnel occupied.

The FCA are a good force, a devoted force; they are in the best tradition of our own people, because they are of the people and, as such, are worthy of the best possible consideration we can give them, and certainly worthy of full training periods and such remuneration as we can give them for it. Remember this: they were built up in the light of circumstance and experience we had. They were a well-knit community, still are, and I think we will all agree that if we wanted to give them the recognition this House should, we should ensure they are treated—particularly when integrated and on parade with the Army or in training with the Army—in the best possible manner. We should ensure not only that they get their full periods of training but that everything in the matter of their comfort in barracks or in camp, and their maintenance and rest be of the highest possible standard. That is what we want.

The problems of the Army go deeper because we are in a changing situation worldwise; the day of Waterloo has gone, the day of the Battle of Verdun went out with the First World War, the day of the air-strike and the commando seems to be on the way out, and we are now at the stage where we have the problem of atomic warfare. That means we have to consider seriously the integration of Civil Defence and the Army. I know it is the current plan that should an atomic attack start, certain key Army personnel, who are in charge of Civil Defence in their own areas, and certain local authority members, will become the constituent authorities in their areas and will become the commanders for the purpose. I believe the time has come to devote an increasing number of Army personnel to this type of work, to get down to an increasing effort to alert, train and consolidate the ordinary people into an understanding of Civil Defence. In so far as I have studied the problem and am au fait with the present situation, it does appear there are certain rudimentary trainings and certain types of shelters and semishelters that can be built, which would eliminate a lot of risk. We would be much better off teaching our people the nature of these defences than many of the things on which we waste our time in connection with obsolescent barracks, equipment and training ideas.

The Army Vote in future, in so far as it spends money on stores at all, will have to try to direct that expenditure on the basis of equipment which has some significance in this day and age. We seem to have a wonderful capacity for finding the most outmoded type of equipment. I am sure we are buying it at a tremendous discount but it is of no value for training purposes and of no value at all when it comes to relieving the monotony which must inevitably set in in an Army in peacetime. It is time to say this: the apprenticeship scheme of the Army has been a tremendous success and has done extraordinary good for the people who were fortunate enough to avail of the opportunities. In so far as is possible, there should be an extension of the school and the scope of the school. It should be extended to a number of other trades, for which the Army has the personnel to do the full training.

I have seen some of those boys at work; I have seen the work they have done and it is a credit to the Army. I always felt this scheme would be a success, but I am convinced that type of dedication and effort in the Army personnel merits from us the type of consideration we are not giving them. I have no doubt at all, in view of the extraordinarily fine job the corps of engineers did down in Ceannt Park, if they were given the opportunity they would build—build very efficiently, and a good deal more cheaply than most agencies—houses for Army personnel. Not only would it give them something to do within their own sphere of activity, within their own sphere of training, but it would also give an opportunity to increase the apprentice outlet and train personnel in the Army in the various facets of the building trade. We want new houses. We certainly want them outside the confines of barracks because it is archaic in this day and age to have the personnel and their families, NCOs and men, checking in through a gate to their own married quarters at night as if they were some kind of undersized children or delinquent schoolboys. Deputy Dowling is absolutely right when he suggests that the idea of confining Army personnel within the barrack walls in married quarters is archaic.

I do not want to delay the House too long. I do not want to say too much and so destroy the impact of my first suggestions. I believe it is not a question of more money; it is a question of readjusting our thinking and using the money voted more effectively. I should like the Minister to set up a commission consisting of Army personnel and civil servants in the Department to see what kind of scheme they could work out to utilise the training, skill and technique Army captains and commandants have coming out of the Army at 54 and 56 years of age and how they could make these skills available in other types of jobs until they reach 65 years of age, thus removing from their lives this ever-lurking spectre of what will happen to them at a time when their sons or daughters are at the age of turn, when these men have to leave the Army if they do not get promotion. The stark reality is that beyond the rank of commandant, promotion is very exceptional and beyond the rank of lieutenant-colonel, it is practically non-existent. We have been talking about this for years and it is time we got down to tackling it.

My final remark is that the loyal service which our NCOs and men have given since 1922 has been incredible. Surely the time has come when we should remove the archaic restrictions on giving them adequate gratuities when they are leaving the Forces and also professional opportunities in relation to rehabilitating themselves in State or semi-State bodies after leaving the Army at such an early age? We should do this in appreciation of the fact that they have given loyal and continuous service to this nation.

Mr. Briscoe

I shall begin by echoing the sentiments expressed about the great pride the people of Ireland take in the way our soldiers have been serving abroad under the United Nations flag and how much we all appreciate the tremendous goodwill they are creating for Ireland. They are, in a sense, ambassadors abroad and I was delighted to read the Minister's comments on how well they have been received wherever they have gone, the manner in which they have made themselves friendly and have tried to understand, as it were, the problems of the ordinary people they have met in the various lands in which they have found themselves.

Then, I should like to comment briefly on the position of the refunds which we are due from the United Nations. A small country like this can find many other uses for the money which we have had to lay out to provide for our troops wherever they may be called to serve. We do not begrudge this because we believe it is being well spent in the cause of furthering peace. We know the United Nations are aware of this but they should be made even more aware of why we should not be kept waiting too long for the refunds which are due to us. The money which the SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations is still trying to raise could be put to use here as quickly as we get it.

In regard to the FCA, I understand there are approximately 80,000 men in the Force, a very substantial force of loyal and very enthusiastic people. On numerous occasions I have been approached by FCA members and asked whether it would be possible for them to have their own dress uniform. They take great pride in their units, are proud to be soldiers, and they would like to have their own dress uniform, for which they are prepared to pay if they are allowed to have it. Soldiers in every Army in the world take pride, when they go to functions, in wearing their best uniform, their "Blues" or dress uniform, as it is generally known. Members of the FCA are no exception and I ask the Minister to give further thought to allowing these men to purchase a dress uniform with a special mark on it to show their unit. It would be very well received indeed.

The Minister referred to the tenth round increase which was awarded last year and which came into effect. Unfortunately, a number of officers have not benefited as yet. The £1 a week increase was given to all those with £1,200 a year or less and junior officers, in particular, have not received it. I understand a commission have been set up to try to decide what the exact situation is in relation to the Civil Service. I hope the Minister will have a decision soon.

On the question of married quarters for soldiers, I have seen some of them recently. Some of the families have to live in very restricted space. I should like to add my voice to those who have said that as many married quarters as possible should be built outside barracks. The days of living in barracks are over.

I was glad to read in the Minister's speech about the ground work being done by the Civil Defence personnel in giving lectures to members of the Garda Síochána, the Civil Service and other bodies. I put forward the suggestion that possibly the military authorities would be able to organise similar lectures for members of the public and, perhaps, for schools. Civil Defence is of great interest to everyone, and if my suggestion could be adopted even experimentally, we would see whether members of the public who talk about it would attend such lectures. I do not propose to take up any more of the time of the House, as most of the points have already been covered. I will conclude by again praising highly the wonderful work our soldiers are doing abroad and saying how proud everyone in Ireland is of them.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I wish to join with the other Deputies who have complimented our troops serving abroad with the UN. We all feel a sense of pride in the services these troops are rendering in the cause of world peace. I was glad to hear from the Minister that he found them all quite happy when he visited them some time ago. There was a rumour abroad here that our troops in Cyprus were not being properly housed and were not being treated on a par with some other troops. The Minister has to a great extent allayed our worries on that score. He told us he had no complaints from them. He said he visited their quarters and found them living under canvas and in other semi-permanent buildings. The criticism some time ago was that whilst our troops were housed under canvas or in semipermanent buildings, troops of other countries were housed in permanent buildings. It is unfortunate that when the Minister was there he did not inspect the accommodation of the other troops. He told us he did not have an opportunity of making such an inspection. If he had done so, he would be in a better position to assess the treatment meted out to our troops vis-á-vis the others.

I am glad to note that there has been a considerable improvement in the payment of expenses incurred by this country in the peace-keeping missions abroad. Undoubtedly this country should play its part in preserving peace in Cyprus as it did in the Congo. As I say, we all take pride in that, but there was a time some years ago when the United Nations was indebted to us for a very considerable sum of money in respect of expenses incurred by us in this mission. I do not think it reasonable that a small country like ours should be called on to give generously of its manhood and of its Army in preserving peace and should be at a financial loss as a result. I see that the position has improved, and improved considerably, but apparently there is £500,000 in round figures still due to us in respect of the Cyprus effort. The Minister hopes this will be paid as soon as possible. Apparently there is another £250,000 which has not yet been claimed. The Minister hopes that that will be claimed in the near future. I repeat that I think a small country like this should not be at any loss and that we should be indemnified in full against any expense incurred.

With regard to the question of special allowances paid to members of the Old IRA and those who played their part in fighting for the freedom of this country and for the establishment of the State, I wish to appeal to the Minister and to the Government to be a bit more generous. As the Minister says in his statement, the numbers are getting fewer: they are dying out. He also said a significant thing when he said: "Many more special allowance holders than formerly are over 70 years of age and are eligible for old age pensions". I am sure he means to imply that when they become eligible for an old age pension, they cease to be eligible for the full special allowances. I think it would not be going too far for all practical purposes to ignore the old age pension they get and give them the special allowance.

Some time ago on a Supplementary Estimate for the Minister's Department, we had a discussion here on the ratio of civil servants in the Department of Defence to the number of serving soldiers and officers. I think it was calculated that we had about one civil servant to every 12 or 13 members of the Defence Forces. I know we must have civil servants in the Department of Defence and I am sure the great majority of them are performing very useful work. I am satisfied all of them are carrying out the Minister's directions and orders but I must say I think the time of some of those civil servants is being abused for political purposes under the direction of the Minister.

We know that the time of civil servants in all Departments is taken up from time to time answering representations made on behalf of constituents by Deputies. I suppose that is inevitable, although if analysed very closely, the wisdom of it might be questioned. At any rate, I suppose that when a Deputy writes to the Department of Defence making representations on behalf of a constituent, who is an applicant for a special allowance or anything else, he is entitled to get a reply. Some people make complaints about that but I do not. At the same time, when the time of civil servants is taken up in passing on information to Members of the Oireachtas, who do not make representations on behalf of anybody, it is going a bit far.

I am in a position to say that civil servants in the Department of Defence are engaged, under the direction of the Minister, in passing on information to Members of the Oireachtas, to give political kudos to Members of the Oireachtas and to give them political advantage for Party political purposes. I am in a position to say that I have had first-hand information that when Members of this House make representations on behalf of a constituent to the Department of Defence, if he is a Member of the Opposition, he gets a courteous reply in due course giving him the result of his representation and a decision on the case. About a fortnight or ten days before he receives that communication, a member of the Government Party in his constituency who apparently has not intervened in any way at all is made aware of the decision in advance so that he can communicate with the unfortunate who has fought for his rights. That unfortunate person is led to believe that it was as a result of the efforts of a member of the Government Party that he got what he is entitled to.

I want to say that that may be good political tactics and may perhaps serve to regain a seat for a Member of the Oireachtas who has lost a seat, but I think the whole thing childish. I do not think it deceives anybody.

Mr. Coughlan

It is despicable, to say the least of it.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I think it is childish and I do not believe it deceives anybody, but as Deputy Coughlan says, it is despicable and would seek to undermine the esteem in which democracy is held in this country. I am not making a wild charge; I do not consider this a charge at all, because from the point of view of political profit or loss, I do not think it worth talking about. However, I can assure the Minister that I have in my possession three letters which I received in or about the same time regarding three different cases. Those letters were addressed to me, giving me full particulars of the cases in a very courteous way. I also have in my possession three letters which the constituents concerned received from a Member of the Oireachtas, with a letter in each case from the constituent concerned confirming that they had never approached the other Member of the Oireachtas to do anything for them, had not been speaking to him and did not know anything about it. Indeed, it was quite clear from the letters which the particular Member of the Oireachtas wrote to the constituents concerned that he was chancing his arm because he was vague and just gave the fact that an increase in the special allowance was being granted or that a special allowance had been granted for the first time. It was equally clear he did not even know the correct names of the constituents concerned or, shall I say, the names by which they were known.

If civil servants are engaged in this type of activity, on the direction of the Minister, I regard it as a waste of public money and as an undermining of the system of democratic government that we have in this country as far as the Minister, his Department and the particular Member of the Oireachtas is concerned. I regard it as a type of three-card trick of the lowest type, as a sort of an attempt to play on the simple folk who are entitled to such privileges as are provided for them, an attempt to play on their simplicity and to deceive them. I would strongly appeal to the Minister because I am sure the Minister must approve of it or it would not be done, to stop this. I appeal to the Government to stop it and I would like the Minister to unravel the mystery, if there is any mystery.

It may be that the Minister does not see anything wrong with this: maybe he accepts it and considers it proper procedure. Perhaps he thinks that members of the Government Party are entitled to this advance warning or advance notice so that they can play the political game, but if the Minister thinks what I am saying is not correct, I am prepared to lay on the Table of this House the correspondence concerned. I felt that I would be lacking in my duty as a Member of this House if I did not expose this sort of thing. When it first occurred a week or so after I got the correspondence I called to the Department of Defence and intended to take it up with the Secretary, the permanent head of the Department but he was out out of the country at the time. Then it struck me that really was not the Secretary's business or responsibility, that this was being done on the direction of the political head of the Department. I intended to raise it here and I have done so.

Mr. Molloy

I should like to refer to the question of maintenance of barracks. I have been persuing the Estimate and I notice that the figure quoted here for repairs, renewals and maintenance is £163,600. This figure out of a total of approximately £12 million, the total Estimate for the Department of Defence, strikes me as being a very small sum. I am particularly interested in this amount when I think of the repairs, maintenance and renewals so necessary in the barracks in my constituency, Dún Uí Mhaoilíosa, formerly known as Renmore Barracks in Galway.

This barracks, I understand, was built in 1880. In the married quarters there, the only improvements of any substantial nature which have taken place since 1880 are the addition of a very small bathroom in each of the married quarters. When the Minister heard certain rumours and had certain fears about the conditions in which our troops were being maintained and the accommodation provided for them, he showed his concern by visiting and inspecting these quarters on his trip to Cyprus to visit the troops there. I commend him for that action, but I would recommend to the Minister a thorough inspection of a barracks here at home in my constituency to see for himself at first-hand the conditions in which the serving soldiers there must live and must bring up their families.

I would make a special appeal to the Minister to keep in mind, in the spending of this very small sum of £163,600, the absolute urgency and necessity for the installation of a central heating unit in Dún Uí Mhaoilíosa. I know this barracks inside out. I am proud to say I served with the FCA some years ago and am well acquainted with the barracks. On several visits since I have not seen any improvement since my time about ten years ago. Each dormitory accommodates 12 men and they are expected to live and sleep in these barrack dormitories, 50 feet by 14 feet, which are most uncomfortable and extremely cold, even in the summer months. The bathrooms which those men are provided with are actually outside this room where they sleep. They have to go out through an open passage to the toilet during the daytime. This to me is primitive, as, I am sure, it is to the Minister. I would recommend to him to have a special survey carried out, or, if he would visit the area, to see the conditions himself.

We should also like to see the canteen facilities for soldiers serving there improved. I can safely say that one could travel the breadth of Ireland without finding a canteen in such a poor condition. This is partly due to the fact that the barracks canteen committee, which is responsible for the maintenance of the canteen, must charge reasonable prices, which means that there is never any great profit which they could plough back into the improvement of the canteen. This is a matter which is causing some concern and discontent among the soldiers there.

I should also like to refer to recruitment. I understand that it is some time since any recruiting campaign was carried out, certainly in Galway and in the west. The Minister referred to recruitment to the Naval Service and recruitment for Civil Defence, but no reference was made to recruitment to the Army. I am surprised that no reference was made to this because at present there are no more than six or seven recruits in the Galway barracks. The barracks has accommodation for 300 soldiers and there are only about 180 non-commissioned officers and privates there at present who are commanded by a commissioned force which varies from seven to 14, a fairly reasonable proportion. I should like to seen an intensive recruitment campaign for this barracks.

The wages paid to young men is very satisfactory and if there were proper publicity, there would be such a demand that they would have to limit the numbers joining up in Galway. A young man can come into the Army as a private and start off with about £5 18s. pocket money. Added to that, he has his keep and his clothes, the uniform he wears at his duties. On average, that wage would rise after 12 months, when it would be expected that he would reach the rank of a three-star private, to £7 15s a week. This is very good money when one estimates what the fringe benefits are worth. If a man's rations are taken to be worth 6/- a day and his keep as low as 2/6 a bed and his clothes as low as £1, you will find that his income is roughly £11 10s. a week.

Mr. James Tully

£1 a week?

Mr. Molloy

£11 a week.

Mr. James Tully

£1 a week for his uniform?

Mr. Molloy

Well, if you leave out his uniform altogether—that may seem a bit big to Deputy Tully who might not spend that much on clothes——

Mr. James Tully

I am afraid Deputy Molloy will never spend it on clothes all his life.

Mr. Coughlan

You must be wearing bikinis.

Mr. Molloy

I suggest that a young man who wishes to join the Army——

Mr. James Tully

The Deputy is talking through his hat.

Mr. Molloy

——would find that he would have a salary worth £10 a week, on a conservative estimate.

Mr. James Tully

The Deputy is talking through his hat.

Mr. Molloy

Recruitment seems to have stopped in the west of Ireland and perhaps the Minister might elaborate on this point if he has some information about it. We would like to see our barracks at full strength. We are proud of the men serving in it and of the manner in which they carry out their duties. We are particularly proud of the large number of them who were chosen to serve abroad. In that regard, I should like to commend the Minister for his visit to Cyprus. It was a very nice gesture on his part. It was a very long journey for a man who is kept busy in ministerial office to undertake and it was very thoughtful of him to visit the men, address them and see the conditions in which they were working. However, I would recommend him to have a closer look at conditions at home as well.

Mr. Coughlan

I notice that the Minister devoted three-quarters of his speech to congratulating the men who have served abroad. We are all glad of that but the men who served abroad had already been trained at home for foreign service. Unfortunately, the position now is that there is no more recruitment to the Army. I do not know what the Minister has in mind when he says that recruitment is going on. In Limerick city we have a barracks as big as any outside Dublin or the Curragh and I have made several attempts to have men, many of them young married men who for one reason or another had to leave the Army and who had firstclass records, reinstated. All of these men were turned down. In one case, a mistake was made and a man was told that he could apply and would be reinstated, but subsequently I received a telephone call from the barracks to the effect that the authorities in Dublin had said that a mistake had been made and that this man could not be reinstated in the Army.

There is no point in the Minister telling us what he is going to do with the Army because we who live among the Army know what the Army needs. I want to draw the Minister's attention to their grievances and to the conditions in which these men are asked to live in Limerick city. It is not the first occasion on which I have drawn the Minister's attention to the fact that if the married quarters in Limerick were inspected by our housing officers—which they are not allowed to do—they would be condemned out of hand. However, our housing officers and housing inspectors are forbidden to enter the barracks to inspect the conditions there, the filthy hovels in which these soldiers are asked to live. It is not so long since I and other Members of the House questioned the fact that it was impossible to instal plugs in the barracks for washing machines or television sets. That position still prevails. If the Minister is under any misapprehension, I will take him to the married quarters any day he wishes, and point out to him the dirt and filth, the leaking roofs, and the conditions in which these unfortunate people are asked to live.

I am told it is intended to build six houses to help the housing situation in Limerick. That is like a daisy in a bull's mouth because the whole of the married quarters in Sarsfield Barracks must be levelled to the ground. I defy the Minister, or the man who has been sending out these filthy double-dealing letters a week ahead of the representations made locally, to come to Limerick and allow into Sarsfield Barracks any of our housing inspectors, and we will have a demolition order made within 21 days, the number of days required by statute. If the Minister thinks six houses will rectify the position, he had better take another look at it, and he had better make another visit to Sarsfield Barracks.

I want to come now to the Navy. The Minister devoted three or four lines of his speech to the Navy. He said one corvette has been refitted and that another is undergoing a similar refit. I have a question down for answer tomorrow which will prove to the Minister beyond yea or nay that many more of those who are attached to the Navy are on land than on sea. What the unfortunate people at sea have to try to manipulate reminds me of the day when poor old Noah went off about his business, or when the Kontiki went off somewhere, not knowing where it would finish up.

These men who are asked to serve on these two decrepit old wretches of corvettes should be decorated for bravery, and it is about time the Minister took note of this. I will take him for a trip on a corvette any day if he wants to see for himself.

Mr. James Tully

You will not get him to do that.

Mr. Coughlan

He would know then what seasickness was.

Mr. Harte

The two of you would be in the one boat then.

Mr. Coughlan

There is one thing certain. It will be rocking financially when he is in it. It would also be interesting to find out tomorrow, from the question which I hope will be answered, the area which this cripple and a half of a corvette has to survey, and the amount of work it has to do. This is no joke. It is a fact. I know something about this because I went to the trouble of finding out—much more than the Minister did.

I want to refer now to An Slua Mhuirí. We have attached to the Naval Service very active young men who have devoted most of their time and attention to An Slua Mhuirí. They have not yet been provided with a rowboat. They go for their annual training to Haulbowline, or wherever they have to go. They go there diligently every year, and they come back and march around the town on parade on dry-land duty. Not as much as a rowboat is provided on the River Shannon for these young men. What does the Minister expect from these devoted young men, men who have a vocation for this calling? Where is the encouragement for them? It is not there.

One other matter I want to deal with is the medical services provided by the Minister for members of the Army. We heard a lot about the medical services from the previous Minister, but it has all been contradicted now. We will be hearing more about that very soon. The tragic position with regard to the ordinary private or NCO today is that he is deprived of all medical services, except at his own expense. The health authorities have withdrawn the medical cards for the past 12 or 18 months and any medical services now have to be provided at his own expense.

We in Limerick—and I am a member of Limerick Health Authority— have been more than generous in our treatment of medical card holders and applicants, but unfortunately all Army men are out, while, at the same time, medical services are provided free of charge for the officers and higher ranks in the Army. There are permanent men all over the place in the different barracks so far as I know, and in Limerick, there is one permanent men who attends to the officers only. That is something which is worthy of investigation. The Minister and whoever is advising him may have made a thorough investigation of the Congo and Cyprus, but we should start putting our own house in order at home first. If I were to publish what the Minister has presented to us here today in Sarsfield Barracks in Limerick, I know how long it would last on the notice board, because the whole thing so far as I am concerned is deception, piffle and tripe.

Sir Anthony Esmonde

There are one or two points I want to raise on this Estimate. It came to my notice not very long ago that although serving personnel in the Army—and I presume this applies to the Navy and the Air Corps—are passed as fit to join the service when they are recruited, if they fall into ill-health and have to retire from the service, they are not entitled to a pension unless they have served overseas. I should like the Minister to clarify the position in that regard, and to state whether it is true. If it is, we must be about the only fighting service in Europe today, or possibly in the world, that does not look after its people when they are invalided.

I had a case last year or the year before in which a man had been recruited to the service and passed by the medical personnel as in perfect health. Then he had some lesion or heart trouble, and he was subsequently invalided and could not get a pension because he was not eligible. I understand that all he was eligible for was a small gratuity, the argument being that this was some sort of latent disease that did not manifest itself until later on. I want to put this to the Minister. If a man joins the Defence Forces, it is his career, as such, if he joins up for a fulltime period. He gives the best years of his life to it. Then, at 30, or perhaps a bit more, he finds himself out again in civil life and cannot get any pension. There is something wrong in that. It should be adjusted and attended to immediately.

In regard to the service of personnel overseas, I know that the personnel are fully protected nowadays as to pension rights and if they contract any disease, and so on. It seems to me that we shall have a lot of demands for service personnel in the not too distant future. With the desire of the former colonial powers to get rid of their responsibilities as soon as possible, they have the habit of giving home rule or self-government, or whatever you like to call it, too late, as a rule. They usually wait until there is the father and mother of a disturbance in the country and they are forced to get out when they establish what is known as an emergent nation and set it up as such. On account of the curious set-up in these countries in which many conglomerations of tribes, and so on, are involved, there is usually an upheaval. The call immediately goes out to a country such as ours, which is not a colonial power.

It is very likely that there will be a heavy call on us for troops in the future. I can see the possibility of such a situation in Nigeria in the not too distant future where they have had several revolutions and in Aden, where there is a disturbance going on now. Have we the personnel to cope with that situation? Have we sufficient service personnel to deal with any demands that may be made on us? I notice that the Minister said that the bulk of the demands had been met by the United Nations. Is the Minister satisfied, from his experience and the considerable delay there has been in meeting these demands by the United Nations, that if there is a fairly heavy call on our personnel, the demands will be met? Is he satisfied that, if there are heavy calls on our personnel, we shall have sufficient personnel, on the basis of the recruitment at present, to have a safe amount of troops within this country? We have always to remember that the Minister's Party is not over-popular in certain areas lately and it may be necessary even to utilise troops for the restoration of law and order. It is a factor that has always to be borne in mind.

I come now to the Irish Naval Service. It seems the most idiotic economy conceivable that we persist with these corvettes. They cost a tremendous amount to refit, to refuel and to utilise. They are of no use as fishery protection ships. They are too slow. They can be seen, hull up, miles away so that anybody fishing within territorial waters can get out of them because the corvettes are not fast enough to catch them unless they sink the boat which is trying to escape. They must be a national burden to refuel and to send anywhere.

To have any sort of a naval service, we must associate with other navies. We must be seagoing. A corvette costs five or six times as much to send on a cruise as something which would be suitable for the purpose for which we require it. Last week, I put down a question to the Minister inquiring about the position with regard to our corvettes. I accept that, having only three of them, it is extremely likely that one would be at a dockyard for refitting in rotation and that the other two would be in service. The Minister's reply was that we can man two corvettes but that we have to withdraw shore personnel to man the second. Is it not a ludicrous state of affairs to say that we are trying to carry on a naval service with antiquated ships which are of no use for the purpose for which they are required? They are not of any use for anything; they are not of any use for action or for harbour defence. They are not even able to lay a proper smokescreen. About ten years ago, they might have been utilised for a slow convoy. There are very few merchant ships which would be convoyed which would travel as slowly as our Irish corvettes. Therefore, it would be in the national interest and in the national economy to dispose of these ships as soon as possible and to get some smaller type of craft that would be of some service for the purpose for which they are intended, which is largely fishery and harbour defence and convoy in times of emergency.

On several occasions in this House I have mentioned to successive Ministers for Defence what other countries with parallel population and financial conditions have done to preserve their fisheries from the point of view of the type of vessel they use. I have even been told that the British Navy would be willing to lease ships to us for the purpose of keeping the ships in commission so that they could be used at any time they were wanted in an emergency. We could get a fairly modern up-to-date navy, at practically no cost, if we had any negotiations with other navies who would lease us ships to do the job they are required to do.

It seems to me that everybody in official life has long lost all interest in the Irish Naval Service. Is it any wonder that it cannot get recruits? I did not realise, until I heard Deputy Coughlan speak just now, how idiotic the situation is with regard to our Naval service. They have nothing to train with. If you want to train a sailor, you must send him to sea to get his sea legs. If they all go down to a dockyard and do a bit of drill there, then we might as well keep them here and let them do the drill in a square.

The Minister should go to the Minister for Finance for the requisite sum in capital expenditure for a replacement of these corvettes which are now becoming a standard joke in the annals of naval history and save a considerable sum of money in the annual Budget and in the expense of running the Department of Defence.

Minister for Defence (Mr. Hilliard)

I am sure I shall be pardoned if, to a great extent, my reply to the points raised in this debate is a bit scrappy. I am grateful to the various Deputies who contributed so usefully to the discussion. However, a number of issues were raised to which I shall devote whatever time is at my disposal in my reply.

The number of civil servants and also the number of civilian employees in the Department of Defence was raised. The Civil Service staff of the Department of Defence is not as ridiculously large as has been alleged by our critics. It has been alleged it is ridiculously large in relation to our Army of 8,000, that it is too costly and that in any case it is unnecessary, as the Department of Defence should not have any civil servants at all but should be staffed entirely by military.

To take the last point first, it is a principle of our democratic way of government that Departments of State are staffed by civil servants. The Department of Defence is not, and should not, be an exception. It is at least as important in that Department as in the others to express the civilian nature of our administration. This must be seen as a fundamental proposition transcending any question of the size of the Civil Service staff, its cost or even its efficiency.

Nobody seriously questions the necessity for the existence of the Defence Forces. Deputies have commented favourably on them in general, and some have even suggested we should increase them. Other Deputies made the point that we should bring them into line with modern requirements. The Defence Forces, such as they are, are there and their numbers are regulated in accordance with Government policy. They must be fed and accommodated. Pay and allied matters have to receive attention. They must be equipped, and this involves the purchase of a wide variety of stores. In that connection I want to assure the House that whenever purchases of equipment are made, it is the most modern equipment that is purchased. That has been the practice at all times except in the very early stages and in emergencies when equipment was required quickly.

A code of Defence Force Regulations must be provided. Military and other lands for which the Department has responsibility must be administered. All this, and the various military activities which involve business with Government Departments and other civilian interests, give rise to a vast amount of clerical work and negotiation. It is the responsibility of the Minister for Defence to ensure the satisfactory performance of these functions and the civil servants appointed in the Department of Defence for that purpose are acting on his behalf.

On the purely practical level, if the Civil Service were removed from the Department of Defence, its place would have to be taken by other personnel— by military personnel, as has been suggested by the critics. There are two things to be said about this. First, if a cheaper form of labour is the objective, the result is likely to be very disappointing. Second, it would involve the diversion to clerical work and miscellaneous office duties of something like the equivalent of a battalion of troops from their proper military pursuits—more in fact than we have serving overseas at present. This would be an intolerable burden on the permanent Defence Force.

The actual number of civil servants in the Department of Defence on the 28th February, 1967, was 504 of all descriptions, including 80 belonging to non-clerical classes such as messengers, cleaners, etc. I am quoting from a reply I gave in the House to Deputy Ryan. Civil Defence accounted for 55, and pensions and allied matters 73. The Establishment Section, which deals with the administration of the Department generally and with the conditions of employment of over 1,500 civilian employees of 90 different categories, had a staff of 65 excluding messengers, cleaners, etc. Broadly speaking, therefore, the number dealing with the Defence Forces was of the order of 230 administrative and clerical personnel.

What do these 230 do? The statistics of some of their activities which lend themselves to that form of analysis may be helpful. Taking personal accounts alone, the civil service staff compiles and audits the pay accounts of 7,150 weekly paid military personnel, 1,500 weekly paid civilian employees and 20,000 effective FCA members and other reservists. The staff compiles the accounts of and pays directly: 3,800 soldiers' wives, paid marriage allowance weekly; 900 soldiers' parents, paid voluntary allotment weekly; 1,300 officers, cadets, nurses and chaplains, paid monthly; 500 civil servants, paid monthly, bimonthly or weekly, and 500 Reserve officers of the First Line.

This may be summarised briefly by saying that there are approximately 35,000 current personal accounts in operation involving the making and/or recording of a total of roughly three-quarters of a million disbursements per annum. There is also, at any given time, a very large number of personal accounts in the process of being wound up, including about 10,000 non-effective FCA accounts. Counting children in respect of whom allowances are paid, there are some 50,000 persons who, directly or indirectly, are paid some form of remuneration or allowance by the Department of Defence.

Mr. James Tully

Are the children paid individually?

Mr. Hilliard

No. This figure does not include pensioners. These personal accounts are not just simple records of pay or wage entitlements and payments thereof. There are various allowances such as additional pay, ration allowance, travelling and subsistence allowances, uniform allowance, overseas allowances; and deductions such as rations, clothing, electricity and fuel on repayment, quarters, income tax, saving certificates, life insurance, fines, forfeitures, et cetera.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

A typical Civil Service brief.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister should be allowed to continue.

Mr. Hilliard

The Civil Service staff places about 7,000 contracts annually, in accordance with the approved Government contracts procedure, for a very wide range of goods and services and valued in a normal year at upwards of £2 million. It administers over 300 properties, involving the handling of numerous lettings, rentals and encroachments. The Civil Service staff of the Department for Defence has been subjected to intensive scrutiny since about 1948 in the light of post World War II developments. It can be said that the current staff is the minimum capable of effectively discharging its responsibilities. However, the introduction of a computer system in the Finance Branch, scheduled for late in 1967, will appreciably affect the staffing position. This in itself is proof that the Department has moved with the times.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

I do not want to interrupt the Minister, but was there any reduction in the Civil Service staff in the Department since 1948?

Mr. Hilliard

There was an increase in the work of the Department because of the introduction of Civil Defence.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

Surely we cut the Army?

Mr. Hilliard

Because of the nature of the work, the existing Civil Service staff could, with relatively minor increases, cope with Defence Forces of substantially greater strength.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I do not know what point the Minister is replying to. My suggestion was he should relieve some of the Civil Service from political activities.

Mr. Hilliard

I shall deal with the Deputy's point separately. I have already referred to the 1,500 civilians employed in army units. Very largely these are tradesmen and labourers who are there to do work for which qualified military personnel are not available. It is the practice in most modern armies to have a number of civilian employees, tradesmen and others. Our proportion is about the same as that in other armies, as far as I understand.

The question of the disposal of military barracks has also been raised, as it was last year and on numerous occasions before that. As the House is aware, our military barracks are an inheritance. They were there when the State was founded, and practically all of them have been occupied since by military forces. The question of their disposal and the provision of our troops with new barracks is a big question and one to which I have given a good deal of thought. Last year I informed the House that I was having the matter examined. I have since consulted the military authorities and the officials of the Department of Defence on this matter. As Minister for Defence, I must take account of their advice on matters of this kind.

I realise that the maintenance of some of the barracks that we occupy at the present time is a heavy burden on the State. I realise that many of the billets the soldiers occupy could be much better. I also realise that we would operate much more efficiently if we had barracks built to modern requirements. However, this is not an over-rich country, and we are limited by the amount of money voted each year for these purposes. One would think all we had to do was to shut these barracks and give them away to Dublin Corporation or some other body. It just cannot be done that way. This is State property and it has to be dealt with according to the method of disposing of State property. I have not yet received a report in relation to the future of our barracks, so I cannot say what advice I shall get from the authorities. I agree with Deputy Tully when he said it would not be possible to take our troops out of the city of Dublin. As long as it is necessary to maintain them in Dublin, we must have barrack accommodation for them.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Hilliard

If I am going to continue my reply to the points raised, I must be allowed to do so without constant interruption. I do not mind an odd shaft in any circumstances. I realise that there is a problem about these barracks and that it will have to be faced some time.

The question of the provision of houses for military personnel is an old one. The Department of Defence has done the best it could down the years with the money that was made available to it to provide houses as married quarters. Many of the old married quarters are not up to the minute, but they are occupied at a very low rent. It is not a rent really; they are occupied at a very low charge. Some people do not like leaving this accommodation when the time comes and we often have to go to a lot of trouble to get possession.

Mr. Coughlan

The local authorities will not provide houses for them.

Mr. Hilliard

I am not putting that up as an excuse. I wish I had the money to build houses for military personnel. I would not build married quarters inside the barracks at all. I believe that is a hangover from the other days. That day is gone and in the concept of modern living, soldiers should have accommodation that is not too close to military quarters. But there are other considerations. Men serving in barracks like to be near; they do not like to have to take transport or go by bicycle or other means in order to get from their homes to the barracks.

It is primarily the responsibility of the local authorities to provide housing, and all over the country they have been very generous about that matter. Wherever troops are serving, the local authority, as far as they possibly can, accommodate military personnel. It is my desire to do the best I can with the money available to me.

I have been criticised because I did not mention the FCA in my opening speech. The Estimate is mainly for the purpose of providing money for the Army. The first line of defence is the standing Army and the second line is composed of the FCA and the other reserves. Since I became Minister for Defence, I have not spared myself in attending FCA camps and speaking to the men themselves, encouraging them in the good work they have undertaken and asking them to give long enough time in the service to become efficient. I did not think it necessary to labour this point or to repeat it here in the House.

Mr. James Tully

Because of what happened last year, would the Minister not agree that it was very important that he should have said something on the Estimate?

Mr. Hilliard

All that happened last year was that they were called up for only one week's training instead of two.

Mr. James Tully

The Minister knows what happened as a result of it.

Mr. Hilliard

They are being called up for two weeks' training this year. In that connection, from my own experience, I do not think two weeks is enough at all.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

Hear, hear: we are in full agreement with the Minister.

Mr. Hilliard

But two weeks is as much as can be managed. As I say, it is not enough. From my own somewhat limited experience, it is not sufficient time in which to train a man to be an effective and an efficient soldier.

The question was raised of accommodating disability pensioners in St. Bricin's Hospital. That has been raised on previous occasions, both with myself and with my predecessors. There are different points of view. I have examined the matter and I have come to the conclusion that, because of the extensive programme of hospitalisation that has taken place throughout the country over the past number of years and the facilities now available to everyone, there is no real necessity to take on this responsibility in St. Bricin's Hospital. Since I became Minister, I have had many requests to admit final pensioners, very prominent men, some of them, into St. Bricin's Hospital for free hospitalisation. I have refused those requests because I felt that, if we gave it to one, we would have to extend it to all disability pensioners and eventually to the special allowance people also and the permanent Forces disability pensioners. We would be providing hospital accommodation over and above what is needed in the country. It is much better that the ordinary health services should be availed of as far as possible, irrespective of whether the patients are ex-1916, ex1920, ex-1922 or ex-1923, or men belonging to the Permanent Defence Forces.

It is true that you can have hospitalisation in St. Bricin's if the disability pension was not pronounced final by the Army Pensions Board. That applies to a small number of people and the fact that such people are called up from time to time for further medical treatment, the idea being to reduce the degree of disability, has given rise to a good deal of comment. So far as I am concerned, I want to assure the House that anybody who is called to St. Bricin's Hospital is called because he has a disability pension that has not been pronounced final by the Army Pensions Board. The Board is the authority in this matter, and not the Minister. If a man with a disability pension produced a certificate showing that disability has increased to a considerable degree, he can seek a review of his case. I want to be perfectly open in this. In no circumstances could I make a recommendation to the Government or to the Department of Finance that we should undertake the treatment in our military hospitals of persons other than those already covered.

I am not satisfied with the Naval Service as it is at present. I do not think it would be of any appreciable value to us in any emergency. Like the barracks, I inherited the three corvettes. Certainly the corvettes can stand up to rough seas, whatever else may be said about them. Light boats would not do around the west coast. There one needs a ship which will stand up to the hazardous seas.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

No more hazardous than they are for the fishing boats.

Mr. Hilliard

We must have ships which will stand up to the weather. If we are to provide ships for a naval service which will be of value to us as a defence arm, with the secondary function of protecting our fisheries, we will have to undertake a very staggering expenditure indeed. At the moment I do not think that we could afford it. We have been inquiring into the availability of vessels over the past 12 months and it is not true to say we can get vessels of any description quite easily in order to augment those we have.

Mr. Coughlan

All the Minister has is scrap. Over in the museum they should be.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Hilliard

We could get vessels identical with them. They are the only ones on offer. We have to make do with what we have. They were refitted previously and I have had them refitted again. That is all we can do until such time as a policy can be formulated for their replacement. It is a matter for the Government and one with which I have concerned myself over the past 12 months. It is being examined in the Department. I am unable to say at this stage when the examination will be complete.

Deputy P. O'Donnell raised a question about a chapel in Letterkenny, in Rockhill House. This was one of a number of churches and oratories provided during and shortly after the Second World War. It was a concrete hut measuring 100 × 30 feet and it was built by contract. What happened was that the roof was damaged during a storm in 1962. The cost of repairing it was estimated at £1,500. The post at the time was not occupied, with the exception of a married officer's quarters, so it was considered that the expenditure could not be justified.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

Why not sell the whole place altogether?

Mr. Hilliard

The roof was taken away in 1963.

Mr. Coughlan

Deputy O'Donnell would make a guesthouse of it.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

You would get a good price for the house. Sell it before it becomes a derelict site.

Mr. Hilliard

Deputy O'Donnell also raised the question of degrees and the Military College being made a constituent of the National University. As the Deputy is aware, there is a recommendation in the Report of the Commission on Higher Education in this regard. This recommendation will receive full consideration. I am unable to elaborate further on that.

Mr. Coughlan

When? We will hardly be here anyway.

Mr. Hilliard

With regard to the question of grazing on the Curragh— the indications are that fresh legislation may be necessary.

Deputy James Tully raised a question in relation to the two members of the Defence Forces who were repatriated from Cyprus. These men were, in fact, charged in Cyprus with an offence and were found guilty. Their repatriation was recommended by the contingent Commander. In the circumstances of the case, in my view, the proper course of action was to take them home. I do not wish to say any more on this question.

Mr. James Tully

There was a statement made here that in fact they came home with a clear bill.

Mr. Hilliard

They were charged in Cyprus.

Mr. James Tully

They would not be the first to be charged in the wrong.

Mr. Hilliard

The statement said that there would be no further disciplinary action taken.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

That is fair enough.

Mr. Hilliard

There could have been further disciplinary action taken at that time but I am a soft man.

Mr. Coughlan

You have not been so soft in providing medical cards and houses.

Mr. Hilliard

Deputy James Tully raised a question about a boy involved in an accident with a lorry. On the payment of compensation and costs he made the case that he was relating this to what would happen in an insurance company. The insurance company's attitude also depends on acceptance of responsibility for the accident on the part of the person insured.

Mr. James Tully

Not now.

Mr. Hilliard

Responsibility for the accident is the kernel in this matter. We are not accepting responsibility for the accident.

Mr. James Tully

There might be negligence an both sides in which case the insurance company would pay medical expenses. The Army should at least do that.

Mr. Hilliard

I shall look further into it. Deputy James Tully also raised a question about deserters. If I understood him, he said that the law should not now apply to men who deserted during the emergency period. As I understood it, it was decided after the emergency that soldiers who deserted during the emergency should stand dismissed. They are not now liable in respect of desertion. Other deserters remain liable to arrest and charge. Desertion is an offence and has to be dealt with accordingly.

Mr. James Tully

For how many years? It is ridiculous that somebody who has made a decent living for so long should be threatened with the glasshouse when he comes home after ten years.

Mr. Coughlan

They should introduce the statute of limitation.

Mr. Hilliard

With regard to the Magazine Fort, there is no ammunition there now and no explosives.

Deputy Dowling raised the question of the Congo plot. Proposals are under consideration to provide a fitting and dignified layout for the plot.

Deputy Seán Collins raised a question in relation to civil defence. He made the point that the control of civil defence would be taken over by the military personnel in an emergency. That is not my view. It should not be so and I do not think that it will be so. Civil defence is an organisation based on local authorities and the local authority control will be exercised by a local controller who would be the County or City Manager. The overall controller would be whoever is Minister for Defence at the time. I think the idea of the military coming in and taking over control of civil defence in such an eventuality should not be encouraged at all. The military authorities have their own functions and their own work to do. In any eventuality they would certainly have enough to do to look after their own responsibilities. This is a matter that requires a good deal of public support. People should be made aware of the importance of civil defence and that it is an effort of the civilian population to preserve themselves.

A number of other contentious matters have been raised. Deputy P. O'Donnell raised the question of participation by the Army in the commemoration of the late General Michael Collins in Béal-na-Bláth. I am a person who has no animosity——

Mr. P. O'Donnell

I would not suggest that for one moment.

Mr. Hilliard

I only want to preface what I am going to say. I did not carry any animosity with me out of the Civil War. I just want to say that many of the people, personal friends of mine, even immediately after the Civil War was over, were men who were actively on the other side. When I speak of the participation by the Army in this commemoration at Béal-na-Bláth, I find it difficult to talk about it without a certain amount of emotion. We were in the Civil War and, as far as many of us were concerned, we did not look for, ask for or accept any quarter. Many of the people who were very actively engaged in it were the best of friends afterwards. They were the people who did not carry with them through life any of the deep feelings which expressed themselves during that tragic period. I have given a lot of thought to this matter; I have examined it as fully as I possibly could; and I am firmly convinced we should have one commemoration only for all these men who served our country, as these men did. I was very young at the time. Maybe I was of a very impressionable age and I regarded all those people as the greatest men of our race——

Mr. P. O'Donnell

Hear, hear.

Mr. Hilliard

——every one of them, no matter what side he took in the Civil War, and we should not even try, in any circumstances, to single out these dedicated men. Their belief had an air of religious fervour. I think we would better serve our people and their memory by having the Army participate in a single central commemoration of them all.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): And by excluding the name of the greatest of them all from the facts of Ireland. I am not blaming the Minister; I am blaming the people who started it, and the Minister is worse to follow.

Mr. Coughlan

I have no intention of entering into the merits or demerits of the Civil War. I want to ask the Minister a question, has he considered the availability of——

Mr. Geoghegan

Chair.

Mr. Coughlan

Has the Minister considered the availability of the medical services to the Army men who serve in Limerick?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is totally out of order. The Deputy has already contributed to the debate and the Minister is now replying.

Mr. Hilliard

I shall deal now with the complaint made by Deputy T.J. Fitzpatrick (Cavan) in relation to the sending out of letters.

Mr. Reynolds

The good wine is kept to the last.

Mr. Hilliard

He is alleging that civil servants are specifically assigned to send out letters to Members of the Oireachtas, in advance of letters sent out to himself or other Deputies, as the case may be. I have no method of knowing, when a Deputy or anybody else writes to me, and I would say that the same applies to the Department, whether the applicant for the grant, let it be a pension, a special allowance or any other grant, has asked a Deputy to make the representation at all. I have found over the years as a Member of this House that Deputies, when they are asked at meetings at which they attend, or by neighbours of the people concerned, make their representations. They do not specify that that is the case and it is an impossibility for a Department or a Minister to know whether the individual has asked that the case be dealt with. As far as I am concerned, letters coming to me personally, whether they come from Deputies or other people—and other people write, too, in connection with individual cases—I answer myself and, if the Deputy belongs to the Opposition, my Private Secretary sends him the letter.

I do not know what happened in Deputy Fitzpatrick's case but I reply as Minister—and the same applied when I was in the previous Ministry. The file is on my desk; I sign the letter and the letter goes out. It could be several days before anybody else who is writing into the Department, or to some official in the Department, gets a reply, until the file goes out of my office to the branch concerned. That is the only explanation I can offer to Deputy Fitzpatrick. I do not know what happened in the cases he mentioned.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): With the permission of the Chair, I shall tell the Minister in two sentences. I made representations on behalf of three persons. I made them to the Secretary of the Department and the Secretary of the Department replied to me. Either the Minister or a civil servant tipped off a Member of the Minister's Party, who did not make any representations at all, a fortnight before I was communicated with.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should not make charges against civil servants who have no way of defending themselves.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): With respect, I did not make a charge against a civil servant and I want to go out of my way to say I am not doing so now. I charged the Minister, as the political Head of the Department, with directing the civil servants to do that.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If the Deputy has already dealt with the matter at great length, he is not in order in raising it again.

Mr. Hilliard

I have answered the Deputy as fully as I could. I want to say this to Deputy Fitzpatrick——

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Hilliard

I want to say this to Deputy Fitzpatrick, or any other Deputy concerned in this: I am not responsible for leaks out of the Department. How am I to know if there is such a thing?

Mr. Reynolds

On a point of order, it is the Minister the Deputy is blaming, not the Department.

Mr. Hilliard

My shoulders are well able to carry any blame; I often carry blame for things I did not do.

With regard to the question Deputy Coughlan put to me about medical treatment of soldiers, I answered a question by Deputy L. Belton some time ago—a question similar to the question Deputy Coughlan has put to me—and if I repeat the reply which I gave to that question, I think it will answer Deputy Coughlan, that is, if I understood him fully in the case he was making. The reply I gave Deputy Belton on 15th March, 1967 was:

There has not been any change in recent years with regard to the provision of medical treatment for the families of serving NCOs and men. The Department of Defence does not accept liability for the cost of domiciliary treatment, except at Fort Dunree and in the Curragh Training Camp area, where such treatment is provided by Army medical officers.

As regards hospital treatment the position is that prior to the coming into operation of the Health Act, 1953, dependants were afforded hospital treatment in public wards in approved voluntary and local authority hospitals at the expense of the Vote for Defence. In the Curragh Camp area, as a special case, the treatment was provided in the Families Section of the General Military Hospital there.

With the coming into operation of the Health Act, 1953, local health authorities became liable for the provision of medical, institutional, and specialist services for soldiers' dependants to the same extent as they are liable for the provision of such services for other members of the community in the corresponding categories as to social insurance and income. In that connection, I should mention that NCOs and men are insured under the Social Welfare Act, 1952, as amended. Where the dependant receives the treatment in a public ward of a local authority hospital, or in a public ward of a hospital approved by the local health authority for the treatment of their patients, my Department defrays the charges made by the health authority. My Department also defrays the charges for specialist services provided by a health authority under section 15 (4) of the Health Act, as amended.

This statement may not cover every aspect of the matter and if the Deputy has particular cases in mind and lets me know, I will have them examined.

Mr. Coughlan

I will, and my statement may be much briefer than the Minister's and more to the point.

Mr. Hilliard

Delay in the award of special allowances was mentioned by Deputy P. O'Donnell. A delay of 12 months is most unusual. A special allowance is dealt with in anything from six weeks to three months. I checked recently and found that only 50 cases out of a total of 450 special allowance cases were held up for more than two months and they were cases of special difficulty. None of them was more than six months old.

Deputy Molloy spoke of the inadequate provision for maintenance of barracks and mentioned the figure of £190,000 under Subhead S. That figure is for materials only, the provision for labour being in Subhead F.

Again in relation to special allowances, Deputy Fitzpatrick mentioned old age pensions. They are substantially ignored in the assessment of means. There is a softening out in relation to means assessment.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

What about the abatement of military pensions where there is a disability pension?

Mr. Hilliard

The same thing applies in the Civil Service—the same principle. If a civil servant contracts a disability while in service, the same thing applies. It is of general application. I do not think there is anything else to which I should reply. The debate has been helpful and useful.

Mr. James Tully

The next time there is a parade of troops, do not let us have half the troops wearing black boots and the other half brown.

Mr. Hilliard

It is a matter of timing.

Vote put and agreed to.