DF Commission Report

The Paper of Record wrote about Piper Aircraft Twice since last week. Its a wierd one where they got that idea

Apperently Gormanstown to be upgraded to a Full training base for new recruits

Given the IPV's arriving next year that is kind of necessary for the East Coast at least. West Coast still not really convinced, wonder where it will be?

Sure the fishing community will love having the Navy as neighbours...

Had a look at the committee hearing. Coveney was impressive as others have commented and seems personally invested in delivering this. Certainly the committee members didn’t engage in play acting and seemed supportive of the direction of travel. The sign off by Dper on pay elements is important, as with the changes in ministers in about 2 months will see things grind to a halt. There is a huge amount in the report and to be fair there is a lot of unglamorous structures, operational, tendering and design work to be done to ensure that what is being worked on is sustainable. I still think the recruitment / retention piece will be a struggle, but I hope to be proven wrong. Big investment in Haulbowline, (70 M) but is much of that cleaning up the rest of the old steel works? Coveney seemed committed to more missions abroad- I would like to have heard more on that - AC / NS ? Another piece is engaging with EU defence initiatives- but maybe it was out of scope on the session. Anyways my initial impressions.

Foks before Cavan barracks was shut down, they invested heavily in a brand new barracks at enterance to tje town, that was sold for peanuts to the ETB, close to Midlands and border and would not take much investment, never understood its withdrawal in tbe first place but the building and security fence is there already

In relation to Gormanstown being a main training base would they not be better of taking back Cavan, Mullingar or Longford where the infastructure is in place with just refurb needed and use them as the training base. I presume new building will have to be built in gormanstown for this to work there?

To be honest, given what you’d likely have to spend “refurbishing” I think a new purpose built option is actually the better investment.

Is there going to be any timeframe or KPIs for putting the parts of the Commisions report that government are gping to do

It looks like casement is staying long term. Hanger upgrades, New Medical Facility and now a etender out for design of New Ordance Stores and Guardroom

But think about the landing fees in Shannon airport and all the sambos that where sold

The Air Corps have Tender out today for a company Train its staff for Air Traffic Control. Good sign of things to come

At last some sensiable thinking. The state is looking at joint purchasing with our EU friends. The Mowags replacment could be part of this as well as aircraft

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2022/11/15/ireland-backs-push-for-joint-eu-military-procurement/

And if the argument is either the DOD can’t handle multiple large scale procurements simultaneously, or are afraid of “EU regulations” then going with a bigger order should help there. If there is any serious intention of some sort of anti mine capability for the NS, why design our own when there’s a major European project designing and building them right now for multiple nations for example.

I wonder privately are they thinking Boxer apcs, The Dutch/Belgian/french MCM etc. Is there any EU countries looking at a MRV?

I see the Cavan Monaghan college will be leaving cavan army barracks long term for a new college in the town. Could this lead to the army returning to cavan?

If the air corps keep 112 it would be a good place to base it with the new service in the south

I see a defence review is to be conducted… I thought the Commission on Defence did a fairly decent job - I hope not more paralysis by analysis - at this point the reform process needs some early, tangible wins to help stem the outflow and help build morale … certainly these things are not done in a day but it is hard to maintain morale in an organisation where the bad news is relentless

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2022/12/06/new-major-irish-national-security-review-to-examine-russian-aggression-and-chinese-cyberattacks/

Clarification is not to clarify things. It is to put one’s self in the clear (Sir Humphrey Appleby)

Will Defence stay with FA next week ?