'No concerns' for Defence Forces member over paper that caused furore

The morning after the article was published, secretary general of the department, Jacqui McCrum, wrote to senior press officers to say that the chief of staff had set up an “investigation”. File Photo:Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie

The association representing officers in the Defence Forces has said it had no concerns for a member after an academic paper he wrote caused a furore inside the Department of Defence.

The paper, written by Lieutenant (now Captain) Brian Clarke, was included in the official Defence Forces Review 2020, which was published last December.

Details of the paper — revealed online in the Irish Examiner on the morning of December 3 — stated there was one civil servant for every 23 soldiers in the Defence Forces.

The immediate reaction within the department to publicity of the paper is documented in Freedom of Information material that was recently released to the Irish Times.

The review is published yearly by the Defence Forces and the 2020 edition, some 280 pages long, was edited by Lieutenant Commander Paul Hegarty and produced in academic collaboration with Dublin City University School of Law and Government.

The paper stated that the ratio of civil servants to soldiers in Ireland was more than seven times the number of civil servants than Sweden and ten times that of Finland.

Lt Clarke said this reflected the “all-encompassing” role of the Department of Defence in Ireland in running the Defence Forces, in stark contrast to the structure of other neutral or non-aligned countries in Europe.

He said the secretary-general of the department, “an unelected official, can now at times hold de facto command” of the Defence Forces.

FOI documents show the publication prompted a furious reaction in the department.

The morning after the article was published, secretary general of the department, Jacqui McCrum, wrote to senior press officers to say that the chief of staff had set up an “investigation”.

Asked by the Irish Examiner had anyone in the department raised the issue with chief of staff Mark Mellett prior to his decision, a Department of Defence spokesperson said this was not the case.

The spokesperson added: “In addition it should be noted that the investigation was not ordered by either the secretary general of the department or the minister.” 

A statement from the Defence Forces said: “Assistant Chief of Staff is currently conducting a review and will report to the Chief of Staff on its completion.” 

It is understood the review is in relation to corporate and academic governance and is expected to be finalised in the next few weeks.

Commandant Conor King, general secretary of RACO, the representative body for officers, said: “RACO was interested to discover that our association was the subject of an investigation ordered by the chief of staff — the association had not been advised of this.

“Although it has been made clear that RACO was not connected in any way with the DF review or its contents, it is worth noting that this respected publication goes through rigorous academic scrutiny and its contents are presumably comprehensively fact checked through this process and reviewed by DF PR Branch before publication.

“To answer your question regarding any concerns for our member Lt Clarke, RACO has none. The DF prides itself on being a learning organisation with a ‘just culture’. 

"Indeed, he has actually been promoted to the rank of Captain in the period since the publication of the article, though this is entirely coincidental.” 

Other sources confirmed the promotion but also said it was part of Capt Clarke’s “normal career trajectory”.

Department of Defence had 'serious issue' with Irish Examiner article

Freedom of Information documents show that on the morning the Irish Examiner article appeared on December 3 last, the head of the Department of Defence communications, Brigitta O’Doherty, said she had a “serious issue” with the article and said to a colleague that the review had been “given to the Examiner” but had not crossed her desk.

Later, an examination by a department communication specialist and sent to various top people in the department, from secretary general Jacqui McCrum down, said: “A story published in today’s Irish Examiner entitled “Ireland has one Department of Defence civil servant for every 23 soldiers” has been shared across social media with a large number of Twitter users commenting on the story.

"DefenceIreland was among the accounts to post links to the article, seeing 18 likes and 3 retweets. 

"Irish Examiner journalist Cianan Brennan also shared the post, prompting 5 replies, 22 likes and 11 retweets. IDFOC’s [Irish Defence Forces Officers' Club] thread on the article accumulated more than 50 likes in total.” 

It gives an analysis of social media traffic on the Defence Forces Review and on an article by Conor Gallagher in the Irish Times, which after being published just an hour earlier, had already seen 5 retweets and 15 likes.

An email early the following morning from Ms McCrum to Chris Donoghue [press adviser] and Ms O’Doherty, said that in relation to the Defence Forces Review the Chief of Staff had asked Assistant Chief of Staff Adrian Ó Murchú to “launch an investigation, but I think that will be primarily into content”.

She added that “this is the operational risk come through to reality and I now need action to mitigate against something like this and the Irish Times ARW [Army Ranger Wing] article happening again”.

The department provided a briefing for the Government press office in relation to the paper, which said that the department had not been consulted about the article.

It added: “The department has a range of issues with the content and conclusions in the published article, including various statistics quoted which are quite wide of the mark.” 

It said that a “superficial review” of other countries showed that the figures in the article were “substantially out of line” with actual numbers in terms of both civil and military personnel and that the comparisons made and conclusions drawn were “quite misleading”.

Assistant secretary general at the Department of Defence, Ciarán Murphy, emailed the Review’s editor, Lt Cdr Paul Hegarty, asking if anyone “actually checks” the figures in the article and if a correction should be issued.

The following week, Lt Col Gavin Young, head of DF Public Relations, responded on behalf of Lt Cdr Hegarty. He said the review had gone through a strict peer-review process.

He said the editor rechecked the footnotes in the paper and cross-checked them against the sources provided.

“The numbers Lt Clarke has referenced based on his analysis and interpretation for his paper are correct,” Lt Col Young said.

He added that the DF Press Office “received no contact from Cormac O’Keeffe of the Irish Examiner” about the review and that there was no press release before the conference.

He said it had been highlighted on social media beforehand and that the review was on the Defence Forces' website for around 36 hours before December 3.