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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 6 Oct 2022

Vol. 1027 No. 3

Ceisteanna Eile (Atógáil) - Other Questions (Resumed)

Defence Forces

Bernard Durkan

Question:

75. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Defence the anticipated future role of the Defence Forces, Army, Naval Service and Air Corps in future national and-or European defence measures; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48882/22]

I am supportive of the various announcements to which the Minister has referred. I have raised these issues at every Question Time for the past 25 years or more. I am seeking to ascertain the changing role for the Defence Forces in this country, in either the European or national context.

The White Paper on Defence, which was approved by the Government in July 2015, resulted from a comprehensive examination of defence requirements. It provides the defence policy framework for the period up to 2025. This policy framework is designed to be flexible and responsive given the dynamic nature of the security environment and enables the defence organisation to be adaptive to changing circumstances and to use resources as efficiently as possible. Within this context, the White Paper contains the Government's decision to put in place a fixed cycle of defence reviews. The first such review, the White Paper update, was completed in 2019. While the update acknowledged challenges in certain areas, it affirmed the fundamentals of our approach to defence policy that were set out when the White Paper was approved in 2015. The next step in the fixed cycle review process is a strategic defence review.

The establishment of a Commission on the Defence Forces was set out in the programme for Government and was a key priority for me. In July, the Government approved funding increases to reach a defence budget of €1.5 billion by 2028 at January 2022 prices, and a high-level action plan for the report of the Commission on the Defence Forces. One of the early actions identified in the high-level action plan is the commencement of a strategic defence review. Officials in my Department are working with the military authorities with a view to progressing this action.

The Deputy is asking about the international environment for defence and security, which has changed fundamentally in the past eight or nine months. We need to be responding to that, as every country needs to be, and we are. We are fortunate to have had a commission which had done an awful lot of the ground work for us and made independent recommendations to the Government about the level of funding we need and the level of capacity investment that will be needed in the coming six years. I am determined that we will not only meet those targets but surpass them. By 2028, the debate on defence in Ireland needs to have moved on. We need to see future governments confident in making a decision to move well beyond level of ambition 2 in terms of our capacity in order for us to be a credible international actor as a non-militarily aligned country that has the capacity to deal with its own sovereignty protection issues and can also be a proactive peacekeeper in parts of the world that are experiencing challenging environments, particularly through Chapter VII missions. That will require a significant increase in capacity, investment and equipment in the coming five or six years.

The Minister exactly anticipated my supplementary question. There is not very much time left and the time between now and 2026, 2027 or later must be used carefully. It must be used to prioritise all of the issues within the Defence Forces that need to be upgraded and updated in order to meet any challenges in the future. I welcome the commitment the Minister has already made. Will it be sufficient on the basis of that commitment to realise the targets within a shorter timeframe than the one mentioned by the Minister? Would it be possible to allay any fears we might have in respect of any insufficiencies that might have existed previously?

The biggest challenge we have is in personnel. At the moment, the numbers in our Defence Forces are a long way short of where we need to be. That is the case not only in the Naval Service but also in the Army and the Air Corps. We must turn the tide to start gaining momentum and achieving a sense that we are adding people each year, as a net figure. As I said earlier, if we are to achieve the targets that have been set for us by the commission, we need to add at least 3,000 people to the Permanent Defence Force in the next six years. We also need to add approximately 3,000 people to the Reserve Defence Force in that period. That is an extra 6,000 people in the defence family, between Permanent and Reserve Defence Force personnel, in six years. That will not be easy to achieve, given the fact that we have been losing numbers in both forces for quite a long time.

What I can say in responding to that challenge is that there is an extraordinary level of partnership between the Defence Forces and the Department at a very senior level, the likes of which I have not seen before. The relationship between the Chief of Staff and the Secretary General is very strong. They are both absolutely determined to make, in some cases, radical changes, if necessary, to be able to move our numbers in the right direction. We made some decisions yesterday, having got approval from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, that can help in that regard. People who join the Defence Forces now, once they are beyond their first six months' training, will be on a salary of just under €35,000 per year, as opposed to the €30,000 salary they would have been on until now. That is a result of the changes we have made to access to a military service allowance. Recruits no longer have to do other things, such as mark time, as it is called in military speak, for their first three years. We are doing things immediately to try to turn the tide. The biggest challenge we have is not me getting more money at budget time, which is important and needs to happen, or going through the tendering system to get big, modern and necessary equipment into our Defence Forces; the biggest challenge we have is the human challenge to persuade the right kinds of people in sufficient numbers to join the Defence Forces and stay in their roles thereafter.

Is the Minister satisfied of the Government's ability to address the retention and enlargement issues in the Defence Forces? That enlargement of the Defence Forces needs to take place to achieve many of the targets for the future that have been laid out.

Have the particular and specific issues that have been retarding the retention of people, or the attraction of new people, been identified within the Defence Forces? Is it possible, within the time and targets available, to address that in full and maybe exceed the targets?

We are not yet where we need to be as regards planning, but we are working on that. The Chief of Staff, the Secretary General and I had a long trilateral meeting at the PDFORRA conference yesterday during which we talked predominantly about recruitment and retention, and what needs to be done in the short and medium term to turn around numbers that have been moving in the wrong direction for far too long. It is not easy to do that. For what is worth, I will put on the record that trying to attract people into the Defence Forces is a challenge that virtually every country in the developed world has. That is especially the case for countries that have full employment, as we have, where there are private sector incentives to try to encourage skilled people and specialists, in particular, out of the Defence Forces into different jobs and so on.

This is not an easy challenge but we will put in a lot of financial resources and bring in outside expertise. By the end of this year, we will have a new head of transformation and a new head of HR in the Defence Forces, both civilians, in addition to a new head of gender. They will be senior people reporting directly to the Chief of Staff, bringing outside expertise and knowledge, and working with the Chief of Staff and his team on the general staff, to try to bring about the kind of radical change that is needed to turn these figures around. Of course, the Department is very much part of that conversation, as I hope are the representative bodies, which recognise that we all need to pull in the same direction to make this happen. I am satisfied that we can achieve this but it will take a significant effort and will cost us a lot of money, which the Government has committed to.

Maritime Jurisdiction

Brendan Griffin

Question:

76. Deputy Brendan Griffin asked the Minister for Defence if he is confident that Ireland's submarine cables are safe and protected in Irish waters; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48903/22]

Aindrias Moynihan

Question:

105. Deputy Aindrias Moynihan asked the Minister for Defence the measures that are being taken to ensure increased patrols and monitoring off the south coast of Ireland to safeguard the communications cabling in Irish waters; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48981/22]

Cathal Crowe

Question:

110. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Minister for Defence if a security analysis has been undertaken by the Naval Service in respect of strategic undersea pipelines and cables serving Ireland with fuels and communication lines; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48806/22]

This matter is further to the earlier conversation regarding the exposure of our submarine cables. What are we doing to protect those cables in light of what occurred in the Baltic Sea recently with the Nord Stream undersea gas pipeline? What level of international co-operation is Ireland involved in when it comes to protecting these submarine cables?

I propose to take Questions Nos. 76, 105 and 110 together.

As I stated when answering Question No. 72, the Naval Service, as the State's principal seagoing agency, is tasked with a variety of defence and other roles. While the main daily tasking of the Naval Service is to provide a fishery protection service in accordance with our obligations as an EU member state, it also carries out a number of other non-fisheries related tasks in tandem with maritime surveillance. The Air Corps maritime patrol squadron also supports this role by providing aerial assistance to the Naval Service in patrolling the Irish exclusive economic zone using the two CASA CN 235 maritime patrol aircraft, which are due to be replaced in 2023 with the expected delivery of two new C295 maritime patrol aircraft.

Following an extraordinary EU Energy Council meeting that took place last week to discuss the EU’s energy security in response to the attacks on Nord Stream 1 and 2, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications sought support from my Department for additional measures that could be put in place by the Defence Forces to ensure that critical offshore infrastructure, including data cables, is protected. My officials and the Defence Forces have been engaging with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications and while the Defence Forces have limited subsea capabilities, particularly in this specialist area, additional patrols and targeted surveillance of offshore infrastructure, including data cables, are being examined.

On the future development of subsea capabilities, the Commission on the Defence Forces report considered that a step-up to level of ambition 2 should seek to deliver enhancements of subsurface capabilities to monitor subsea cables, which the report specifically mentioned. The report states that to achieve this would mean the naval fleet should have enhanced air, surface and subsurface search capabilities, with the latter allowing the Naval Service to monitor activity in the vicinity of subsea cables. In order to achieve these desired capability effects associated with a move to level of ambition 2, specific recommendations made by the commission were accepted in principle by the Government when it published its high-level action plan.

We have a medium-term plan to invest in equipment that can increase our capacity in this space. In the meantime, I expect we will increase patrolling and surveillance by the Naval Service and the Air Corps in the areas concerned. We will continue to speak to the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, as well as the owners of the infrastructure, whether that is EirGrid or Gas Networks Ireland. It is important to say that, outside of the cables, all other gas pipeline infrastructure is embedded in concrete under the seabed so it is quite well protected in the first place, but this matter is clearly of concern because of what happened to Nord Stream 1 and 2, which has been a controversial pipeline since the start of the war. However, I do not think the risk levels to our cables and pipelines are anything like those relating to Nord Stream 1 and 2. Having said that, we cannot ignore this risk and we will continue to work with our colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications to do what we can to enhance the surveillance and protection of this infrastructure.

It is very important at this juncture, when Russia and its dictator, in particular, are behaving like a wounded, cornered animal, and are capable of doing things that would not have been considered as being on the agenda only a relatively short time ago, that there needs to be a heightened sense of concern regarding infrastructure that is now vulnerable. I see that particular submarine cable, and those cables we have, as being the crocodile's belly in attacking Ireland, Europe and those that Russia sees as enemies. This is an area that needs to be prioritised. There is scope for enhanced international co-operation to provide the type of security we cannot provide to protect that infrastructure because it is critically important. It is an area where, as we have seen in the Baltic Sea, a relatively small effort can cause a huge amount of disruption and damage. Should something happen to the particular infrastructure off our coastline, it would have an enormous impact on Europe.

I hope this is a statement of the obvious for people in this House - not all national security matters are appropriate to discuss on the floor of the Dáil. We are of course speaking to the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and his Department regarding what the Defence Forces can do to use the capacity we have to act as a deterrent and to provide as much surveillance as is reasonable. Whether it is reach capacity in respect of our Air Corps, primary radar capacity in different parts of the world or subsurface capacity in the maritime environment, there are clearly areas that need and will get investment in the next few years, which have been highlighted in the commission's report. This is one such area. As I said, we can improve security and surveillance by increasing patrols in the air and on the sea. We will discuss with infrastructure owners what more we can do to ensure we manage risk appropriately.

There are approximately 16 cables off the coast.

They are significant arteries of communication, transferring financial, personal and many other kinds of data from individuals, small businesses and global headquarters based here. Having seen the Nord Stream situation and the Russian exercise being conducted in this area, where those cables are at their shallowest depth, earlier this year, this is a real concern for many people. It is good to know the Minister has additional finance for the armed services and the navy and that he is upgrading the different vessels. The replacements for the LÉ Orla and the LÉ Ciara have already been purchased and are coming from New Zealand but they are not due for another year. Is there a way to expedite their delivery? On subsea capability, how long can something realistically be deployed for in that area? I understand the Minister has the finance for people and equipment, but what is a realistic timeframe for the acquisition and deployment of subsea assets to conduct that kind of monitoring?

The new vessels are inshore patrol vessels that can be crewed with fewer people than the ships they are replacing. They are much more efficient and much more modern vessels. I hope they will arrive long before this time next year. I hope to see them in the first quarter, perhaps in January or February. They will primarily be based in the Irish Sea. They will certainly be based there in the winter months because that is what they are most suited for. The gas pipelines between the UK and Ireland, which transfer gas from Scotland to Ireland, are in that area.

On current subsea capability, the Naval Service retains certain capabilities that allow for underwater search and surveying including the underwater remotely operated vehicle and a magnetometer system. As part of the ongoing development of capabilities, further capabilities that will enhance the Naval Service's undersea situational awareness, such as a multibeam echo-sounder system, are also being developed. We are developing capacity in that area but, in the meantime, we will be increasing patrols at sea and in the air to observe what is going on. We will also be talking to the infrastructure owners regarding the measures they have taken because some of them already have private sector surveillance capacity. We will continue to talk to the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications to make sure we are doing what we can.

I thank the Minister for outlining that detail. I understand that undersea capacity is being developed to conduct monitoring but, from the sound of it, it is not days, weeks or months away but will come in over a much longer timeframe. That is a concern. Is there an opportunity to expedite the delivery of that capacity? Is it the case that people need to be trained up or is it a matter of purchasing and deploying equipment? I understand that there is only so much the Minister will be able to say but it is important to clarify that point because quickly deploying the maximum subsea capacity is a significant issue.

On air support, I understand that aircraft are being replaced next year and that two replacement aircraft have been purchased, which are not due to arrive until sometime next year. Is there a way to arrange an overlap and to make them available to the services sooner so that there would be double the number of aircraft out there?

We have aircraft now.

We have CASA aircraft but we also have PC-12s and PC-9Ms. Let us not paint the picture that we have no capacity. It is clear that we need to improve our capacity and to invest in subsea surveillance capacity in particular. That needs to be factored into the provision and equipping of new ships coming in, particularly the multirole vessel. This will be a very expensive piece of equipment and the largest ship we have ever had in our naval fleet. It will have a lot of extra capacity, both subsea and radar. However, that is, in reality, a number of years off. I take that point. As I have said, we are currently in discussions with the infrastructure owners and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications on the appropriate interventions that should be made from a Defence Forces perspective to ensure surveillance and security is maximised, within reason. However, let us not talk ourselves into a problem. There is a lot of cabling and subsea infrastructure across the European Union and multiple countries are looking at theirs in the same way that we are looking at ours. Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 are in a very different risk category from our infrastructure. That does not mean we should ignore the risk. We should not and we are having the appropriate meetings and discussions in that regard.

It is obviously vital that we have sufficient security and surveillance with regard to these submarine cables. We all realise how important we are as an international technology hub. However, if we are talking about critical infrastructure across the board, has the State carried out a sufficient audit of our vulnerabilities? Have we determined the correct point Department to take responsibility in respect of these and ensured we have the necessary capacity? We are in a very different world with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We have entered the period of asymmetrical and hybrid warfare and cyberattacks which can impact us all.

We are having the appropriate conversations with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. We are also speaking to the infrastructure owners so that we can respond with the capacity that is available to us in an appropriate way that manages risk. That is about as much as I can say for now. The attacks on Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 surprised a lot of people. They came out of nowhere. We still do not have any certainty as to who is responsible. We are pretty sure the two pipelines were deliberately sabotaged by a state actor. However, let us not overreact. Of course, we need to do what is appropriate to manage the risk to infrastructure within our exclusive economic zone and sovereign territory. As I have said, those conversations are taking place and will continue but the attacks on Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 only happened in the last ten days. We are having the appropriate follow-up meetings between the relevant Departments now.

Is féidir teacht ar Cheisteanna Scríofa ar www.oireachtas.ie.
Written Answers are published on the Oireachtas website.
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