Shatter puts the cart before the horse

LAST December, Defence Minister Alan Shatter decided that, as a result of a cut in the maximum permitted strength of the Defence Forces from 10,500 to 9,500, a reorganisation would take place including a reduction in army brigades from three (with headquarters in Dublin, Cork and Athlone) to two.

Unfortunately, this was announced in the media before even the general officers commanding the brigades, the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers (RACO), the Permanent Defence Force Other Ranks Representative Association (PDFORRA), or the members of the forces had been informed.

Department of Defence officials subsequently explained that this had happened due to an “error”.

RACO recommended that a communications strategy should be developed immediately as part of the plan to generate the proposals for the reorganisation. Designed to ensure that the various stakeholders were kept informed of what is happening on an ongoing basis, this would help to prevent misinformed speculation that could undermine the planning process and cause serious damage to morale. For some reason this recommendation was ignored. The process to date has been shrouded in secrecy.

There has been no consultation with or briefing of the commanders of the army units, the representative associations or the members of the forces. Of course, nature abhors a vacuum and in the absence of solid “official” information, rumour and speculation abound. Members are now learning of the future of their units through newspaper reports. Early last month, the news that the Western Brigade, headquartered in Athlone, would be the one to go was first broken by the local media before being confirmed in the Dáil.

Many personnel serving in Cork would have heard of the proposed disestablishment of the 4th Infantry Battalion from reports in the Irish Examiner last week. This is simply not acceptable. The men and women of the Defence Forces, their families and the communities in which they live and work deserve to be treated with more respect.

RACO has serious reservations about the process through which the decisions on the restructuring of the Defence Forces are being made. It is said that “form follows function”. So, decisions on the shape or “form” of the forces for the future should follow a determination of their required future roles or “function”.

If we don’t know the roles that the organisation will be required to perform, how can the planners determine the most appropriate structural arrangements to perform them? If we don’t know what it is we will be required to do in the future, how can decisions be made about the optimum number and mix of unit types, the number of personnel with the different military specialist backgrounds, and the number at each rank?

However, it is clear that these decisions are now being made without any detailed analysis of what will be required of the army in the coming years. The planning process is also being distorted by ad hoc reactions to the effects of media speculation. An example is the decision in mid-June that 1,000 personnel would remain in Athlone.

There is now a serious concern that far from facilitating optimal efficiency, as the minister intends, the current process may result in an organisation burdened with structural and human resource problems that will take years to resolve. The appropriate mechanism for arriving at decisions on what the State requires of its Defence Forces in the future is a green paper. This acts as a catalyst for discussion and facilitates contributions from all interested parties. The Government can then make informed policy decisions to be published in the white paper that follows.

With the broad policy parameters, such as capability requirements, overall permitted numbers, location of barracks and available financial envelope provided, the military experts in the Defence Forces can be tasked with producing detailed implementation options for decision at a political level.

In what was a welcome move shortly after taking office, Mr Shatter announced the consultative process for the development of a new white paper on defence would be expanded by the introduction of a green paper, to be published in the first half of 2012.

However, it was then decided to defer this to the end of 2012 and to proceed with the reorganisation first. This seems to be a case of putting the cart before the horse. The decisions currently being made on the structure of the force will be a major determinant of the army’s future capabilities and the roles that it will be able to perform. So, if the reorganisation goes ahead now one would have to ask what will be the point of the green paper. There are no cost implications in delaying the reorganisation. Indeed, additional expenses will be incurred in areas such as the re-deployment of personnel once the plan is implemented. It makes sense to suspend the reorganisation process now and to subsume it into the green paper/white paper process.

* Colonel Brian O’Keeffe, general secretary, RACO.