‘Divisive’ officer system reformed

CHANGES to the practice of recruiting officers to the Defence Forces will see an end to the “divisive” categories of officers who came up through the ranks and those who came in as cadets, an Army officers conference was told yesterday.

Under a modernisation programme, school-leavers, graduates and non-commissioned officers will train together as one category.

The changes were welcomed by the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers’ (RACO) general secretary Lieutenant Colonel Brian O’Keeffe at the association’s conference in Tralee, Co Kerry.

“What was happening up to now was divisive,” he said. He felt the new focus would encourage more graduates into the forces and see the numbers of school-leavers entering directly into the forces fall.

Lieutenant Colonel O’Keeffe stressed that school-leavers would still be allowed into the forces. RACO president Lieutenant Colonel Paul Allen said under the proposed new officer induction system, graduates would be commissioned as lieutenants and there would be an end to the ad hoc systems used to commission and to train officers.

He said RACO was particularly anxious to recruit officers from the ranks. Minimum educational entry requirements, as well as an interview system and acknowledgement of experience, would be used to select officershe said.

Lieutenant Colonel Allen said there would be no compromise on educational standards and there would be no quota system forcing the Defence Forces to take minimum numbers of graduates, school-leavers and personnel from the ranks. Officer candidate selection will be based solely on merit in open, transparent competition The conference was also told officers seeking promotion should not have to go to the Dublin area, where housing and accommodation was more expensive.

RACO called for “real decentralisation” such as the transfer of military police headquarters to Clonmel and the move shortly by Civil Defence headquarters to Roscrea.