When the Dáil reported progress, I was dealing with the question of possible economies which might be thought to be desirable in an effort to make way for an increased rate of pay generally throughout the Defence Forces. The first economy which comes to my mind is an economy in the number of barracks at present occupied by the Army. This is a matter which I have referred to in previous years as well. I still feel that the maintenance of the big old barracks, in Dublin in particular, but also in Cork and on the Curragh, is a very heavy drain on public finances.
If we take the Curragh, many of the barracks there are entirely empty or virtually empty and I think no one can foresee a situation arising when those barracks will ever be occupied again. We sincerely hope not. Even if a situation were to arise and there had to be a large-scale national mobilisation, it would be under circumstances in which the occupation of large barracks, involving large concentrations of troops in a confined area, would be highly undesirable. At all costs, we would have to spread our troops around and make them less of a target for aerial attack.
I feel therefore that these barracks have long outlived their usefulness. They are most unpleasant places to live in: they are dark, and in many cases, very damp and very unhealthy. Besides, they are very hard to maintain. I have never heard what happened to the old coastal forts but as far as I know, they are still departmental property. Some, at least, of the weapons, if not all of them, have been disposed of but the forts are still there and while the Department are the owners, I am perfectly sure a certain amount of maintenance work is invariably carried out which is an absolute waste of money. I would suggest that these old forts, which are in magnificent scenic situations, be disposed of, not destroyed but either disposed of for youth hostels for accommodation for hikers, campers and so forth, or else developed as public parks where people can go to get a magnificent view and also to have the fun, if you like, of wandering around those old forts built so many years ago. I would ask the Minister, as I have done in previous years, to consider again a reduction in the number of large barracks maintained for Army personnel.
Secondly, I should like to refer to the Naval Service. I have never felt happy that this service should have been set up in its present form. It can never be a navy in the proper sense of the word and I do not think we ever intended it should be, but it is built up on the lines of any other naval force. That only makes it very expensive and comparatively ineffective for the only real job it is at present called on to do, fishery protection. The vessels are very expensive to maintain, as we can see from the amount set aside every year for their upkeep. The maintenance of the vessels in this Estimate for the current year will be £53,953, with a further sum of £16,300 for stores and equipment, making a total of more than £70,000 for this year as compared with last year.
The cost of the maintenance and equipment of these corvettes is increasing as it is bound to do as the vessels get older. When you have vessels of that size and type, you have to have a dockyard to maintain them and that again is a very extravagant expenditure which I do not feel is justifiable. There are numerous types of ocean-going motor vessels, small vessels of the motor torpedo boat type, which are quite capable of going into the Atlantic in severe weather which would be much easier to station in small harbours around the coast, such as the points Deputy P. O'Donnell referred to to-day—the coast of Mayo. They could get to the scene of action very much more rapidly and could be of very much greater assistance in sea rescue operations such as are necessary from time to time when aircraft have ditched in the sea off our coasts.
These comparatively fast mobile boats would be, to my mind, a far better investment than the corvettes, for which, I am sure, we could find a market. I feel we are only fooling ourselves when we call this a Naval Service. I would prefer that we would link it up with the coastguard services, the lifeboats and a general air-sea rescue service and also with the Department of Fisheries for protection of our territorial waters. That would be facing facts. It would give us a much better return for our money and the total expenditure would be far less.
Thirdly, I feel that we could make considerable economies as far as the FCA is concerned. The way it is organised at present is, to my mind, essentially wasteful. You have a number of small depots around the country; you have a tremendous amount of transport involved in taking regular Army personnel for training, parades of one sort or another; and I cannot help feeling that all this going and coming is costing a tremendous amount of money quite unnecessarily. I have had experience of the weeknight parades in the old Volunteer Force. They were quite fun in their way but I do not think they were of any real value in so far as building up a force to help the regular Army was concerned.
The Minister's predecessor in office instituted a system of partial integration of the FCA with the regular Army, but I do not think this integration has gone half far enough. I should much prefer to abandon the weeknight or weekend training for the FCA and concentrate on short periods of annual training. I should like to see each regular Army unit, whether battalion of infantry, regiment of artillery or field company of any of the corps or services with an FCA unit as an integral part of itself so that in the case of a battalion, it would have an FCA company as part of its strength. That would be far more economic because it would mean that all the FCA stores, weapons and equipment would be under the control of officers and NCOs who were doing that job anyway for the regular Army. It would also mean that when FCA troops were called up for annual training, they would go straight to a regular unit and stand shoulder to shoulder with regular Army officers, NCOs and men.
We should face the fact that there has always been a certain amount of snobbery in the Army between regular Army troops and reservists of any sort. We experienced it in our own time in the Volunteer Force. We resented it because we thought we were as good as they were. I am sure we were not but we liked to think we were. For one thing, there was a difference in uniform. There was a black Sam Browne belt instead of a brown one and the uniforms for the NCOs and men were quite different. Somehow we were made to feel small boys, almost recruited boy scouts rather than real soldiers. It is not helpful to have that atmosphere and the integration of officers, NCOs and men into regular Army units would be a far better way of handling the whole matter.
At present we have FCA battalions and field companies. I do not want to say anything against them because they are composed of men of tremendous enthusiasm who have a real desire to serve the community. I do not think they are getting a fair crack of the whip themselves and I do not think they are giving fair value for money. Therefore, I ask the Minister to consider, with the Army staff, whether he can go a step further than his predecessor and integrate the forces completely so that there is no differentiation either in uniform or anything else between those who are serving on long term regular engagements and those in the FCA or in the First or Second Line Reserve.
I am very glad a decision has now been taken to buy helicopters. This has been a matter of controversy for some time but it should be remembered that only comparatively recently have helicopters become available which have a sufficiently long range to operate satisfactorily around our coast in cases where we are able to provide only two or three. The argument previously was that if you had only two or three, you would never know where to put them. As sure as fate, if you put them in Galway, they would be wanted in Cork; if you put them in Limerick, they would be wanted in Mayo, and by the time they had made the journey from base to the scene of operations, they would be out of fuel and entirely useless. Now helicopters have a very much increased range and as things have turned out, it was wise to defer their purchase until longrange machines were available. Like other Deputies, I hope they will be used not only for rescue operations but also for assistance in fishery protection.
Comment has been made about the Air Corps generally and particularly by Deputy Sherwin, but I cannot agree with him, because the Air Corps is an essential part of our Defence Forces. Without it, ground troops would be unable to get the experience essential in modern warfare. Also, we need aircraft for aerial photography and to assist in preparation of maps and we must always have a nucleus of trained pilots ready to operate the latest type of jet aircraft or helicopters or small twin-engined reconnaissance planes, if and when a further purchase of such aircraft should become necessary. It is absolutely impossible to have an Army at all unless we have an Air Corps with a good body of trained pilots and ground crews available when necessary.
I am always sorry that we never seem to be able to get a clear statement of policy from any Minister on the question of the tasks it is envisaged the Army is to undertake. This general vagueness is something which does great damage to the Army. The Government as a whole, and the Minister in particular, should try to evaluate the present situation and see precisely what are the main jobs which the Army is supposed to carry out. At present I do not think anybody clearly knows what that job is. If we did know, it would mean a very drastic re-organisation of the Army as it is today. The time has long gone when we can have brigades formed on paper composed of battalions which are of such low strength that they are completely ineffective, supported by field companies which are similarly ineffective. This is dealing with the Army purely on paper. The Army is the greatest expert on simulating situations —not just our Army but armies generally. They are always simulating situations and seeing what they would do in such circumstances. It is time we did a little clear thinking about what are the main tasks the Army may be called upon to carry out.
I should much prefer to see the Army formed into a smaller number of units grouped together into a smaller, efficient force which would be available to move into action at very short notice. At present when we are called on to provide another force for the Congo, the call must go out all around the country and you find so many men from Western Command, so many from the South, so many from Curragh Command and from the Eastern Command lumped together with officers taken from here, there and everywhere and NCOs. being picked up wherever available.
They are thrown together for a very short period of training and then sent on active service. As soon as the period of six months is over, they are brought back, given a short and very well deserved leave and then the whole force disintegrates and is dispersed. That is very bad for morale. To my mind, it is a crying shame that these units that have served in the Congo are no longer in existence, not one of them. They have only been in existence for a short period; they have all done well and now they have been mixed up all around the country.
It is possible that the Congo operation may be nearing its end and that the troops in the not too distant future will be withdrawn from that area. That does not mean that our troops will not be required any more by the United Nations. On the contrary, they have done so well in the Congo that I can foresee them being called for again at any moment. I would hope we can try to reorganise our forces so that at very short notice, when the United Nations calls for troops, we can say: "Right; we can give you a task force to board the aircraft within one week, formed of so many infantry and so many of the supporting services. We can give you a certain detachment of armoured cars, military units, aircraft units, and so on," and have everything ready to go. If we could do that, it would restore to the Army its own sense of purpose and that is the greatest weapon against boredom.
We might even, at some stage, revert to a project of mine which I still feel is a useful one of building up some élite unit, some unit which would be the cream of the forces, ready for immediate action but also a unit which would provide troops for ceremonial purposes, in which the NCOs and men certainly would be entitled to some slight increase in pay, something a bit better in the way of uniform, something which would provide a goal towards which the ordinary NCO and man might strive all the time.
The matter of uniform has come up again. My information is that the new type of uniform has already been approved. Deputy MacEoin and others have been grumbling about the old uniform for quite a number of years now. It is a pity, if it is a fact that a new type of uniform has been approved, that that has not been given some publicity. Every month, we see pictures in the English papers in the Library here of new types of uniform for various armies all over the world —and they are attractive. Our own lads say: "We are stuck with bulls-wool now and forever; we shall never get out of this uniform," the material of which is bad and uncomfortable and the design of which is insanitary. I hope my information is right and I believe it to be so. I would hope the Minister would therefore confirm that a completely new type of uniform has already been approved.
We have heard in previous years that savings were made because of nondelivery of uniform material. We are always being told that the manufactures are so limited in number that it is difficult to get prompt delivery. During the past year, questions were asked in Stormont, I think, or else in Westminster, as to whether it is a fact that British Army uniforms are being manufactured in the Republic. The answer was that it is a fact — that British Army uniforms are being manufactured here. Most of us know from our own observation that the standard of cloth and the cut of British Army uniforms are unfortunately higher than ours. If our manufacturers can manufacture to British Army specifications, I refuse to accept any excuses for our uniforms not being every bit as good in cut, design and material.
The question of boots has also been raised, I have had considerable experience of Army boots. To be perfectly frank, I never minded them. They are magnificent boots for marching in and for cross-country work. I admit that in the American Army they use a much lighter type of boot, much nattier, much smarter and probably much lighter on the foot. However, in the last War, these boots were worn to flitters. In many cases a considerable supply problem was involved. The American Army boots were giving so much trouble that they had to be replaced almost every second week. There is an awful lot to be said for the good old Army boot as it stands. It is heavy and awkward but if it is properly looked after, greased and polished, it is amazingly comfortable and darned good for your feet. I am not pressing for these light rubbersoled boots that other armies such as the American Army, in particular, are using. I think they are unserviceable. I do not think they are good for your feet and I would not swap them for worlds.
I agree with those speakers who have deplored the lack of interest in sports in the Army. There is a good reason for that. It is that there are simply not enough men to provide Army teams in many cases. With so many men serving abroad, with so many men taken away from their units training for overseas service, with so many men on leave after overseas service and with the Army strength so low, the plain fact is that any unit, even as large in nominal strength as a battalion, finds it very hard to produce a team to play anything. The men are too heavily engaged in ordinary duties to have time off. If you get five men free for training one day, six men the next day and two men the day after, it is the best you can do but you can never get nine, 11, 12, 15 men to train together because always some of them are on duty elsewhere. That is one of the other factors which has been very adversely affected by the very low strength and, to my mind, by the great number of Army units.
Deputy Tully referred to the question of promotion from the ranks and the question of the 20 officers who have recently been commissioned. I shall be perfectly frank. This was something which I hoped would not happen. I agree absolutely with Deputy Tully that this is bound to lead to a class distinction between officers. Those officers who have gone the hard way through the College, who have taken a very highly competitive examination in order to get to the Military College and who then went through the full College course, are bound, being human, to look somewhat askance at someone of the same rank who has not reached it in the same hard way.
I do not say that getting promotion from the ranks is an easy way but it is a difficult situation and there is bound to be discrimination of some sort, however much everybody may wish there were not. I would agree with Deputy Tully that discrimination is bound to happen. I hope it will be reduced to a minimum. While Deputy Tully is in favour of the idea, I should like to go on record as being definitely opposed to it. I feel it is a sort of cheap way of getting officers. I think it is putting the promoted NCOs in an almost impossible position. I would hope this experiment would not be repeated.
Generally speaking, I think the public relations between the Army and the community are very bad. We do not see the Army nearly often enough. Naturally, enough, I suppose, the general public are not invited into Army barracks to wander around as this would create security risks. At the same time, it should be possible to have certain occasions on which Army barracks would be open to the public and when members of the public would be invited in to see the Army in training and to see its equipment. Very often, you get ill-informed members of the public stating: "The Army is no darned use; it has not got anything bigger than a popgun." It is the sort of silly thing people say. Unless we can show them the modern equipment the Army has, they will go on saying it and that is bad for everybody.
It is not too soon for the Minister to consider setting up a first-rate professional public relations officer to advise him and the Army staff on methods whereby the Army could be better known by the public. Every effort should be made to allow Army units to take part in public occasions. I do not mean Army parades which are normally very dull; there are cases where the Army Signals might be very useful in the provision of short-wave radio walkie-talkie equipment, and so on, such as at motor races and other outside functions of one sort or another. It would be an opportunity for the public to see the Army Corps of Signals in operation, which would be good for the Army personnel and good for the public, in addition. I would also hope that any requests from outside for the use of Army personnel would be granted without charge so as to encourage a more intimate friendship between the Army units and the civilians among whom they are living.
In many countries now, there has been a reform of the old courtmartial procedure. Our procedure is still in the old form and there is no right of appeal from the decision of the courtmartial. That is unjust and could be very dangerous. The old courtmartial procedure was based on the idea that a brutal and licentious soldiery were being dealt with who were apt to break out and burn the place, given half a chance. Therefore they had to be kept down and treated savagely. Those days are gone, thank heavens, and a soldier, whether he is being brought before a courtmartial or not, is normally a well-behaved responsible citizen and should have the same right before a courtmartial as he would have before a civil court. A courtmartial can give a very savage sentence, not only savage in the sense of imprisonment but in the sense that if a person is discharged with ignominy, it can ruin his prospects for the rest of his life. A very radical review of courtmartial procedure, particularly in order to establish the right of appeal to a higher court, should be carried out as soon as possible.
Last year, I commented on the Easter parade. Everybody misunderstands this, but I will keep at it because I am perfectly sure I shall get there in the end. Easter Day is not a day for an Army parade and the confusion between the Insurrection and the Resurrection is an unfortunate one. We should not celebrate the Rising on Easter Day at all. We do so out of sheer laziness because we do not want to waste a bank holiday. Nothing vital happened on Easter Day, 1916. It was Easter Monday it happened. If we want to celebrate it, we should celebrate it on the calendar anniversary or on some date near the calendar anniversary of the date on which the Republic was proclaimed. We should set aside one day, possibly the Sunday close to the calendar anniversary of the Rising, as a day of national remembrance when we could have some national ceremony, if not outside the Post Office, then at the new Garden of Remembrance when it is completed. I should hope this would stop the somewhat embarrassing procedure whereby various groups pay homage at various graves almost in competition with one another. That is most unpleasant because we are all apt to try to get a certain amount of prestige through being at so-and-so's grave on a certain day. We should unite in a spirit of real remembrance at some place like the Garden of Remembrance and so honour our dead in a fit and proper way.
I wish to refer to a matter I raised last year, the question of the hold-up in the payment of a gratuity to an officer. I spoke very strongly about it on the Estimate last year and Deputy de Valera and I pursued the Minister relentlessly by way of Parliamentary Question for some time afterwards. It was a very long time before we managed to get that gratuity paid. It was paid almost in full but after a tremendous amount of quite unnecessary correspondence. I hoped, however, that when we got through, there would not be any repetition of delay of this nature at the expense of some member of the public. Unfortunately that is not the case.
During this year, a matter was brought to my attention about a delivery van which was going into an Army barracks. The van was stopped outside the gate. It was identified by the military policeman on duty who opened the gates to allow the van in. As the van was going through the gates, a gust of wind blew the gates away from their fastenings. They crashed against the van and did considerable damage. The facts of the case are not in dispute and never were. The incident happened on 26th February, 1962, and it was one of three incidents of the same kind which occurred at that gate on that date, simply because there was a very high wind. It would not appear to be unduly difficult to reach some settlement of the claim which was placed before the Minister for the refund of the cost of the repair of the damage to the van. The claim was made by the owners of the van within a couple of days after 26th February, 1962. The matter was not decided until October, 1962, when the owner received a notification from the Department that the claim had been disallowed and that nothing would be paid.
The owner tried other means, of seeking advice through a solicitor and through counsel and eventually the owner came to me. I raised the matter by correspondence with the Minister on 14th November, 1962, and I pursued the Minister on it. He wrote to me very fully on 7th December giving me the facts, which I already knew, and setting out the legal position, which I had already told him. Even then, having got the facts of the legal position quite clear on 7th December, it was not until 21st January that he was able to inform me that the case had been settled by way of a 50 per cent payment. The total cost of repairing the van was £26 5s. and after almost exactly 11 months hard work, that claim was reduced to £13, 2s. 6d.
Only one of two things could have happened. Either the file in this case was rattling around the Department of Defence and a number of very busy people were examining it, initialling it and passing it on to the next fellow, who examined it, initialled it and passed it on, or else it got stuck in somebody's in-tray and remained there for 11 months. I do not think the latter is the case. I think a number of very dutiful and earnest civil servants kept this case going for 11 months from the very highest motives, because they were protecting public funds. All they saved was £13 2s. 6d. and they did it at a cost very much higher than that. Not only do I regard this as hopelessly uneconomic and inefficient but it is most unjust to the fellow who owned the van which was damaged and who had to pay my firm to get it repaired —and he did pay a long time before the Minister paid him.
I feel these incidents last year and this one this year show that the actual machinery of the Department needs some oiling. It is apt to creak far too much in the joints. In such a case, it would be far wiser, as the facts were never in dispute, to make a request at an early stage to the Department of Finance for permission to pay the whole or half of the cost of this damage. Although the incident happened on 26th February and the claim was put in immediately, it was not settled until 21st January of the succeeding year.
I would hope that those two incidents are isolated ones, but I have a horrible suspicion they are not. I would ask the Minister to look into these matters and see they are not held up in this unconscionable way. It is unjust and a waste of time, energy and money. I am absolutely convinced that this file was being sent around even after I got on to it. The Minister told me he would send the whole matter to the Chief State Solicitor. Good grief, it was only in December it got around to the Chief State Solicitor, even though it happened in February! I have a horrible suspicion it had been to him before. Probably the Attorney-General had it, also the Army legal staff, the Adjutant-General, the Quartermaster-General, not to mention the GOC of the Command and probably the Command Quarter-master, the OC of the barracks and the OC of the military police detachment which furnished the guard at the gate, and Uncle Tom Cobley and all. It is time we got out of that sort of nonsense. Where a small claim is disputed, it should be regularised at once so as to let the staff of the Department of Defence do more productive work.
I am sorry to have been critical in this way. I do not like doing it. I have far too much respect for the Army as such. In fact, I have more than respect for the Army; I have love for it. I feel it has never had a fair crack of the whip. It has always been treated on a cut-price basis. Everything has to be done at the minimum cost. I would hope that, without being mean in any way, we could find some way such as I have suggested of making substantial economy in wasteful expenditure so that, without increasing the size of the Vote at all we could pay our officers, NCOs and men a really attractive salary, to which they are properly entitled. In this way we can encourage the very best of our men to give their service. If we persuade them to come in, nothing is too good for them.
I hope we will always be as proud of them as we are at the moment. We owe them a great debt of gratitude for the way they have upheld the name of the country, particularly in the Congo operation. They get very little thanks for it. Any increase in wages is given very grudgingly. For those who have done extremely well overseas, there has been very little recognition, apart from the award of the United Nations Service Medal. Many have not even got any promotion, even though they served with distinction.
I still feel that the troops who were engaged in Jadotville are under a sort of a cloud, and I am absolutely convinced they should not be. I have received the Minister's assurance previously that he feels the same. But somehow the lads who were involved in the fighting at Jadotville have seemed to be under a cloud ever since and have been under a considerable disadvantage, although I still insist they did extremely well. They fought hard and did an extremely good job, even after they had been tricked into a cease-fire. Everybody—officers, NCOs and men— were magnificent and, when they were involved in further combat operations shortly after they had rejoined the main force they showed that again.
I would hope that the Minister would look into that, that he would give credit where credit is due and that he would review the question of promotions which have been properly granted to some officers and the promotions which so far have been withheld. In general, I should like to give my best wishes to the Minister in all his efforts to improve conditions in the Army and to say again how proud I am I ever had any connection with it and how proud I am to see the traditions built up over so many years still being so very well maintained.
