Cuts to Defence Forces must stop, officers warn

Senior military officers have warned that cuts in personnel which have allowed the purchase of new equipment for the Defence Forces cannot be allowed to continue.

They have also vented their anger at government plans to remove two days of their annual holidays given to commemorate the Easter Rising and the Jul 11 signing of the Truce in 1921.

Colonel Brian O’Keeffe, president of the Defence Forces’ officers association (RACO) made the comments at his organisation’s biennial delegate conference in Co Wicklow.