Minister conceded 'capacity issues' undermining Defence Forces

Defence Minister Simon Coveney.

Simon Coveney has admitted there are "capacity issues" in the Defence Forces which must be addressed.

It comes as details of a draft report on the future of the military emerged which has found that the country is not adequately prepared to defend itself from outside attack.

It is understood that the Commission of the Defence Forces report, due to be published shortly, will highlight "striking gaps" in capacity and will recommend an overhaul of the military.

Defence Minister Mr Coveney said he will be strongly advocating in favour of a significant increase for the Defence Forces when the final report is published.

"I have accepted for a long time that we have capacity issues that need to be addressed," he said.

"I think this report is going to I hope, trigger a very fundamental debate in Ireland politically about how we financially resource military and defence issues,"

However, he ruled out any cutting back of our role in peacekeeping operations, as he said Ireland "needs to play its part aboard".

Independent TD Cathal Berry, who previously served in the army ranger wing, said this country is "recognised internationally as a soft underbelly of the European Union".

Responding to the announcement that the Russian navy will no longer carry out a manoeuvre in our exclusive economic zone, Mr Berry said the Irish Defence Forces do not have the equipment required to track where these vessels are.

"At a household level, every home in Ireland is expected to have running water, some type of central heating, and also electricity. 

At a nation-state level, every nation state is expected to be able to protect their own borders, to be able to patrol their own waters, and to police their own skies, Ireland can do none of those three things.

"So not only can we not to deter somebody from incurring, we can't even detect people from incurring so Ireland is really, really exposed. 

"The Russians have copped onto that and that's why we are suffering disproportionately at the moment," he told RTÉ's The Week in Politics.

Calling for military-grade radar and sonar, he said: "We have no idea where their submarines are."

In a statement on Saturday night, Russian ambassador Yury Filatov said that the exercises would be relocated as "a gesture of goodwill" which was being done "in response to the requests from the Irish government as well as from the Irish South and West Fish Producer's Organisation".

Reacting to the Russian announcement, Mr Coveney said the campaign of the fishermen was very "persuasive" and thanked them for their cooperation on the matter.

When asked if the Government should have pushed Russia further on the matter to demand that the manoeuvres be fully cancelled and not simply moved to another location, Mr Coveney said "we don't control all of the levers here".

"In fact, we don't control very many of them at all. This is international waters that we're talking about."

Meanwhile, Thomas Byrne, minister of State for European affairs, described Russia's actions along the Ukrainian border as an "international scandal".

He said: "What's happening at the border with Ukraine is an international scandal. It's a disgrace. 

"As an independent country, they're being faced down at the moment with over 100,000 soldiers. That is wrong and we certainly want to show solidarity with Ukraine."