DF Commission Report

Because equipment purchases even G2G takes time even in the best situations and with current geopolitics being less than ideal, it's not the best time to be "johnny-come-lately looking for production slots". Moreover in terms of the helicopter replacement for example, given the suggestion that our 139's have been used hard and are showing it, a purchase is needed, how quickly do you think the first will arrive from time of order? Not to mention it sure as hell is more expensive today to be buying military hardware than it was 5 years ago, but its going to be cheaper today than 5 years from now.

In terms of naval purchases it's arguably worse, an order today of an even off the shelf design could take 3–4 years to be commissioned.

If we wait until we see a sizeable uptick in numbers we might have aircraft that are into the reliability spiral we saw with the 235's for example which doesn't help retention, but also the fact that we then have several years at best before we go from "uptick" to "new hardware", would that lag help retention?

All of which comes back to the current geopolitical state, let's not forget in 1939 we had plans for new aircraft, tanks, equipment, right up until a minor disagreement on the German/Polish border upset things. There's also domestic politics to consider, clocks already ticking for the next GE, do you trust a potential SF/SocDem Government or even one of them in Coalition with FF or FG to carry through LoA2/3?

yep, between that and as I said the collapse in operational readiness of the 235s when the 295s were pushed back shows the risks and false economy of trying to delay replacements. Loads of Western nations have similar retention/recruitment issues, few of them make the choice to delay capital investment until numbers improve, hell Capital investment itself can help improve the situation.

Nobody is suggesting ignoring our people problem, it's one of the reasons why I wish apart from pay issues, that the Government/department had been willing to push the base investments faster, rather than what we are seeing now. That being said however we are talking about Irish procurement, unless we have a holiday surprise like the 145m's, we are talking about hitting the run-up for the Budget and after that the Presidential election and whether the Government wants to give our "Left/Tankies" talking points about evil defence spending. For me, until we have an actual order ideally with significant cancellation clauses, I'm going to assume the worst in time frames.

In short, the presidential election.

Its the last election, in a series of three, that the government will face for three and a half years.

They've got control of local government, the Dáil, the Seanad and they want a team player in the Áras also.

And so, they do not want to hand the left the sort of ammunition, pun intended, that we discuss here every day.

There will, therefore, be little in the way of detail surrounding new capital armaments expenditure until, or after, the budget.

The announcement on NDP allocations last week may have been circumspect for reasons of the trading environment still being in flux, but it was no harm, from their point of view, that defence was among those portfolios where details were scant.

Its a relatively simple situation for the most part, as I see it.

While interest and support (albeit limited) has risen in recent years, as a result primarily of the war in Ukraine, the majority of the voting public don't care about Defence matters.

There are a number of more "important" issues which take the front page more often than not, namely health, housing, cost of living and immigration.

The Defence budget allocation is so small that it is insignificant. It pales in comparison to other sectors like Health, despite the bottomless unaccountable money pit that it is. It's part of the reason Ireland hasn't had a stand alone Defence minister in multiple terms of Government. We have two full ministers dealing with Education, along with other portfolios.

On the back of all this you have a DF that has been underfunded and underinvested for decades and has seen an almost steady state decline in personnel over the last 10/12 years.

So you have a Government that on the face of it don't care about Defence, a majority of voting public, who don't care about Defence, a budget so small that it doesn't warrant a standalone minister and all of this is underpinned by a Report which is now 3.5 years old and was effectively out of date and irrelevant 6 weeks after it was published. Not to mention the white paper which was published a decade ago in a time in a geopolitical world which is barely recognisable today.

Its clear that it is not a money issue, as we are one of the wealthiest small nations in the world but in typical Irish fashion, we seem to get piss poor value for money on what is spent.

Another angle is the absence of any clearly defined and agreed national defence strategy or policy. Everything is politics in Ireland is about the next election cycle and getting another 5 years. Which leads back to what your constituents care about, which for the most part is fixing the local potholes and getting an astro pitch for the local GAA club.

The only genuine source of pressure on Government to pony up will come from Brussels. The EU backed Ireland heavily in/during Brexit and the time to pay the piper will come eventually.

An we are now in the club.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/08/01/state-to-use-eu-defence-regulation-to-jointly-purchase-body-armour/

i was thinking it looked different but still good that we ordering with our partners.

I here the new Army Design is getting stuck not over how it show work to modern needs but in Politics with every TD west of the shannon demanding the 4th Western be restablished

Well I’m sure our Tankie Left and the Shinners wouldn’t be, I mean they'd never be some utterly dishonest…

/s

Yes, thats how the system has been established.

In this case, Ireland will be the lead. At the same time we'll be able to avail of other open processes to order units of whatever. Helmets, rations, main battle tanks, ballistic missile rockets and MIRVs, whatever.

F-22 Raptors all the way Jonny, that'll show Jonny Russian and Jonny Chinaman we mean business.

Two dozen examples, plus all the bits, will only set us back 10 Billion Euro. Maybe we can even got Donny Jonny Trump to drop the tariffs when his eyes light up at all that dough, eh?

Hence, why it's slotted into LoA3 with the presumption that the staffing levels are already around LoA2 recommendations and in a fit state to grow to LoA3 levels. But since that is going at the same pace as everything else of LoA2, it's not going to be a concern till the next Government at best, and given their BS if that includes any of our Left/Tankie **** parties it's not going to happen.

The Naval Service don't operate a separate pay policy from the rest of the defence forces.

All ranks and grades are analogous. Engineers and artificers have the same grading and allowances available as the Air Corps can pay qualified technicians, or the Army can pay CIS techs, and so on.

The reason the Navy seems to be making inroads into numbers, is because their establishment strength is a very low base anyway, and small increases make a big difference.

Last week Minister of State Thomas Byrne claimed on TV that there is now crew for 3 x P60s and 1 x P70 to be operational. Not sure I entirely believe that, but thats the report.

The Tankies would disband the DF, but Sinn Féin would definitely push for re-establishing the Western Brigade. They've a confused, though consistent view of our military.

To SF, the army is a means to funnel tax money from the state to people. To them, the more state spending on anything, the better. As a result they'll support the idea of having lots of soldiers, lots of barracks, having National, Brigade or Battalion HQs around the place to "support the regions" etc. Even if it's dreadful value for money and achieves little.

On top of all that though, SF are uncomfortable with the idea of the people who are employed in the armed forces actually doing any soldiering, and they feel that they definitely shouldn't be equipped with just about anything (to SF, armoured vehicles and helicopters are wastes of good hospital money at best, and toys for warmongers at worst).

This begs the question; "What will these soldiers we forbid to function as soldiers do?". SF feel that ideally our armed forces will really be more like a second Civil Defence. They'll lay out sandbags during floods, help search for missing people, and (as one SF TD actually suggested after Storm Éowyn) every single soldier will be a trained electrician and lineman so they can fix the grid after storms.

But they'll still want an entire re-established Western Brigade (and hey, why not a Northern one too?) in place to oversee this new harmless Defence Forces.

Integrated but not static.

And ideally much more capable than the RBS-70.

The MBDA MICA missile is the short to medium range system of choice for mid-size European militaries at the moment. Range of up to 30,000 feet and can be launched from mobile or fixed batteries, seaborne VLS, or rail-launched off modern fighter aircraft for long range intercepts.

But the land component development people will also have to turn their minds to force protection tactical towed and MANPAD SAMs.