For a number of years we have advocated that the defence forces of the country should be organised on the basis of a small highly-efficient Army backed by a Volunteer Force, and even the previous Government gave a certain amount of assent to that organisation. We propose now forming a Volunteer Force that will be wide spread throughout the country and recruiting into it men of good character who are prepared to serve the country. The Force will be formed within the reserve, and as such will be an integral part of the defence forces of the State. It will be organised in each military district on a territorial basis in a manner to be prescribed by military regulations. The units raised in each territorial area will have their own commissioned and non-commissioned officers, but for purposes of command, administration and discipline, they will be subject to the officers commanding the military districts in which the units are located. In the military districts there will be regimental areas, and in these areas there will be battalions. To give you an idea of what the regimental areas will be like, I have a provisional list. In the regiment of Laoghis and Offaly will be included the counties of Laoghis, Offaly and Westmeath. The regiment of Desmond will cover Cork and Kerry. The regiment of Dublin will cover Dublin City and County. The Oriel regiment will cover Louth, Monaghan and Meath. The Connaught regiment will cover Galway, Mayo and Roscommon. The regiment of Thomond will cover Clare and Limerick. The regiment of Breffui will cover Cavan, Longford, Sligo and Leitrim. The Tirconaill regiment will cover Donegal. The regiment of Ossory will include Tipperary, Waterford and Kilkenny. The Leinster regiment will cover Kildare, Carlow, Wexford and Wicklow.
As connecting links between the Regular Army and the various volunteer units, there will be appointed district executive officers representing the district commander and area executive officers representing the various territorial units of the Volunteer Force. On the district executive officers will devolve the duty of supervising, on behalf of the district commander, the work of the area administrative officers in all matters pertaining to recruitment, to the training and allotment of recruits, and to the custody of public property and the disbursement of public funds.
The area administrative officers, on the other hand, will act on behalf of the Volunteer units. The area administrative officers will, of course, be Regular Army officers. They will initiate and advise on recruitment and will arrange for the training and allotment of personnel to units. They will be responsible for providing accommodation and equipment for the Volunteers; for promoting social, athletic and recreation activities for the units, and they will be directly responsible for the safe custody, distribution and accountancy of all public property and of any public funds entrusted to the units.
In this work the area administrative officers will be helped in military matters by the regular personnel of the military districts in which the units are located, but in matters not directly of a military character they will be helped by local committees. Volunteers in each area will be known as "The Sluagh" of the locality, and from the members of the Sluagh will be formed a Sluagh Committee appointed by the local administrative officer. In each Sluagh area there will be built or hired halls for the purpose of training, administering and promoting the various activities of the Sluagh, and the Sluagh Committee will help the area administrative officer in seeing that these activities are properly co-ordinated and efficiently carried out. The members of the committee will not receive any payment, but a secretary, to be nominated by the area administrative officer, will receive an honorarium of £5 a year from public funds. Further, in respect of each Volunteer who is finally approved, who attends week-end camps and performs a certain number of nightly drills, or who reports for training, there will be paid into the funds of the Sluagh Committee certain grants-in-aid which will be administered by the area administrative officer and will be spent in accordance with prescribed regulations. Such funds will be augmented by local contributions, and will enable the committees to look after the welfare of the sluaighte in their localities.
The Volunteer Force itself will be organised by three groups or lines. The first line, generally speaking, will consist of volunteers between the ages of 18 and 25, who will fulfil certain physical conditions laid down by the regulations, and also of old volunteers who had service prior to the Truce in July, 1921. The ages will be 18 to 25 for the first few years. Afterwards it is intended to confine recruiting to men between the ages of 18 and 22, but normally for the first years they will consist of volunteers between 18 and 25, and also old volunteers who had service in the Army prior to the Truce in July, 1921. This last class will, as a rule, serve five years in the first line and will then be transferred to the second line.
The volunteers of the first line will receive their initial or annual training with the Regular Army, but in addition they will be required to carry out a certain number of drills each year in the local halls, as well as any week-end or over-night camps arranged. Further, if a volunteer, during his initial training shows any particular aptitude for non-commissioned rank or for any specialised branches of the ordinary service, he will be permitted to extend his training period up to three or four months so that he may be thoroughly trained in the service of the branch concerned and return to his local unit as an instructor or specialist.
Again, any of these volunteers who have shown exceptional keenness and efficiency as non-commissioned officers and who possess the necessary education will be eligible for commissioned rank in the Volunteer Force, so that in time the Volunteer Force will provide its own instructors, non-commissioned and commissioned officers, and preference will be given to such men for commissions in the Regular Army.
Finally, during their training periods, volunteers of the first line will receive the same pay and allowances as soldiers of the Regular Army of corresponding ranks. Apart from that, they will be purely on a volunteer basis. It is only when they come up for the annual training that they will be paid, and then on the same scale as men holding corresponding ranks or appointments in the Army.
The second line of the Force will be composed of those volunteers who have been transferred from the first line, and also of men not over 45 years of age passed as fit who possess special qualifications for the corps or service for which they have been attested. Old volunteers with pre-Truce service are also eligible for this second line. Volunteers of this second line will not be trained with the Regular Army but will carry on all their training with the local units by means of nightly drills, parades, camps and mobilisations. Volunteers of this line will receive no pay, but when called out for training, camps, parades, inspections or mobilisations they will receive rations, fuel and quarters, or an alternative allowance on the same scale as allowed to corresponding ranks or appointments in the Regular Forces.
The third line will comprise men between 45 and 55 years of age passed as fit, who, owing to family or other circumstances, are unable to comply with the requirements of the first or second line. These men will receive their training with the local units and will serve on the same conditions as volunteers of the second line.
The Volunteer Force thus organised in three lines will, in time, become self-contained, and every facility will be afforded its members to form not only complete infantry units but also their own medical or ordnance service as well as their own cavalry, engineering, signalling, or transport corps.
The financial cost of the Force will, of course, depend on the response to the call for recruits. Twenty area administrative officers have already been appointed, and have received commissions in the Regular Army. They are at present undergoing a short intensive course of training and administration, and it is anticipated that they will begin work in their areas about the middle of February. Assuming that each of these officers will, on an average, recruit 250 first and 250 second line volunteers, there is a total of 5,000 of the first line and 5,000 of the second line, and assuming that 300 of the first line will have received their initial training early in March, the cost to the end of the present financial year will be as follows:—
Pay
|
£1,993
|
Lodging, subsistence and other allowances
|
581
|
Transport of troops
|
544
|
Mechanical transport
|
2,600
|
Provisions and allowances in lieu
|
324
|
Clothing and equipment
|
63,107
|
Fuel, light and water
|
80
|
Barrack services
|
100
|
Incidentals, including the hire of halls
|
800
|
Enlistment grants
|
2,500
|
Gross total
|
72,629
|
Less cost of clothing and equipment available
|
43,858
|
Total net cost
|
28,771
|
A large portion of that £63,107 for clothing and equipment will be on foot of the new Volunteer uniform which will be issued. Some of it is merely a book-keeping item and will really be taken out of stores already at our disposal. This sum of £28,271 will be met out of savings in the Army Vote for the present financial year so that only a token Vote will be necessary.
During the next financial year, if it is assumed that the strength of the force will have increased from 10,000 to 24,000 the approximate net cost will be £243,736, of which £50,000 will be borne on the Vote for the Office of Public Works in respect of the building of halls.
The cost of the force has been spread over the different sub-heads of the Army Vote. This in a sense is undesirable but it is nevertheless unavoidable owing to the structure of the Vote and owing to certain rulings given in previous years by the Committee of Public Accounts.
In the Supplementary Estimate you will see the additions that have been made to the sub-heads. It is the only way we could get them up owing to our system of accounting. The allocation to the sub-heads of the total cost is to a large extent tentative but it cannot be otherwise at this stage. As the scheme gets into its stride allocation will become more exact, but meanwhile it will be necessary to rely on the power of virement between sub-heads subject to the concurrence of the Minister for Finance.
Next year, as I have indicated, I will be asking for £50,000 for the building of halls. It would be impossible to know now how many halls will be required. We have a number of old barracks in different parts of the country and we propose to take them over and fit them up for the volunteers.
Whenever there is a number of men forthcoming as recruits and there is no suitable hall available for hireage it is proposed to build a hall as quickly as we can go ahead with the work. I think I have said sufficient to give an indication of the structure of the volunteer force. There will be three lines, the first consisting of young men from 18 to 25, normally 18 to 22, who will serve five years in the first line and come up for defence training in the area and these after five years will be transferred to the second line. They will remain in the second line until they are 45 years, and in the third line from 45 to 50 years. Non-commissioned officers and commissioned officers will be drawn from the volunteer force after the first annual drilling and training. The likely men who would make good non-commissioned officers will be given a further period of training and from the non-commissioned officers who have got their training the commissioned officers will be taken.
When the first line is up for annual training, it will be organised on the same basis as it would in war under its own officers. When it goes back after that training to join up with the local sluagh, and then, for the purposes of the weekly training, for competitions of all sorts and descriptions, the members will be under the command of the camp commandant, who will be the senior officer of the first line who happens to reside in the district. We hope that by keeping the competitive strength organised between the different sluaighte, a high standard of training will be maintained in the local halls, and that that will cut down the work to be done when the volunteers come up for training. As far as I can see we are adopting the same system as they have in Switzerland, with the exception that we are cutting out conscription. There you have a very small standing army, an army merely of instructors for administering, training and officering an army of 250,000. That particular type of army did very good work for Switzerland in guarding its neutrality during the war. It proved that such a type of organisation is sufficient to make even strong neighbours respect a country, and we hope to make ours respected and that, like Switzerland, we shall be able to guard our frontiers against any person who might like to interfere with us. The scheme, after a number of years, will, I believe, give us a very much more efficient defence force than we have at present, and at a very much lower cost. For the first few years, on the building of halls and the providing of uniforms and equipment, we shall have to spend a good deal more money than will be normal after that initial expenditure has taken place. I think I have pretty well covered anything I wish to say, and I ask the Dáil to pass the Vote.