The Commission on the Defence Forces was established on foot of a commitment in the Programme for Government. The report of the Commission was published on 9th February 2022. The Commission undertook a significant body of work, encompassing wide-ranging terms of reference. It recommended significant changes for the Defence Forces and Defence provision in Ireland. It covers high level Defence Forces structures, defence capabilities, organisation, culture and human resources, the Reserve Defence Force and funding.
In July last year Government approved a High-Level Action Plan in response to the Commission report. As part of this, approval was given for a move, over a six-year period, to a level of Defence Forces’ capability equivalent to ‘Level of Ambition 2’ (LOA2), as set out in the capability framework devised by the Commission, which will entail funding increases to reach a defence budget of c. €1.5 billion (at January 2022 prices) by 2028 through the annual Estimates process.
Implementation structures are in place encompassing an Implementation Oversight Group, a High-Level Steering Board and an Implementation Management Office (IMO) to support the implementation of the overall transformation programme required to implement recommendations from the report of the Commission on the Defence Forces.
The High-Level Action Plan also sets out all the recommendations contained within the report and designates a response of Accept, Accept in Principle, Further Evaluation or Revert.
There are a number of recommendations contained in the report which may impact on the structure of the Defence Forces including that the structure of the Army be reviewed, and in that context, the disposition of Units across the Defence Forces may be considered.
The recommendation, that the structure of the Army be reviewed, was identified as an Early Action in the High-Level Action Plan. The Military authorities have appointed a head of Army Force design who will lead an Office of army force design which will undertake the work required to give effect to this recommendation. The Implementation Management Office is working on the production of a detailed implementation plan for the remaining recommendations which will include those which may assist with informing any decision about the future structure and organisation of the Defence Forces. This plan is expected to be published in the coming weeks.
Another of the Early Actions identified is the commencement of the Strategic Defence Review. This review is the second in the cycle of reviews as proposed in the White Paper on Defence and follows the 2019 White Paper Update. These cycles of reviews are to give assurance that defence policy remains up to date and relevant to the changing circumstances and bring certainty and regularity to defence planning.
As set out in the White Paper these reviews will be based on an updated security assessment and a fresh consideration of the implications of this assessment for policy requirements, associated tasks, capability development and resourcing.
The first stage of this review is a security environment analysis which is being prepared by an interdepartmental working group at present.
