A GROUP REPRESENTING Irish Defence Forces officers has strongly criticised the Government’s handling of new proposed laws governing the military – accusing it of ignoring concerns raised by an Oireachtas committee.
Earlier this week the proposed Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024 was strongly criticised by backers of the Triple Lock measure, which governs the circumstances in which troop deployments are ordered.
People Before Profit lashed out at the planned removal of the measure. The current situation is that Irish troop deployments would require a UN resolution, cabinet approval and a vote in the Dáil.
This elicited a strong rebuke from Tánaiste Micheál Martin, who is also Minister for Defence, in a tetchy Dáil exchange. The government argues that the change will essentially remove the veto power of UN Security Council members over Ireland’s overseas engagements. Russia and China are among the permanent members of the council.
While that has been grabbing the headlines, the workforce in the Irish Defence Forces have other concerns about the bill.
The Representative Association of Commissioned Officers (RACO) had strongly criticised a supposed gagging order on their ability to comment on Government policy. PDFORRA, which represents non-commissioned ranks, also had criticised the measure.
That issue appears to have been solved as the Government agreed to change the wording.
But concerns remain for RACO which sent a missive to its members in recent days claiming that the Government has “disregarded” the work of an Oireachtas committee examining the proposal.
In an email to its members, seen by The Journal, it launched a stinging attack on what it said was an effort to stymie the legislative scrutiny of the bill.
Pre-legislative scrutiny is a system which tests the new legislation as it passes through the Oireachtas.
A draft Bill, called a General Scheme, will be written by the Department and, if Government approves, it will be published. The Committee can conduct Pre-Legislative Scrutiny (PLS). It will decide whether to hold hearings and/or invite submissions from the public.
A report by the committee examining the Bill (a panel made up of members of the Oireachtas Defence and Foreign Affairs committee) was released after the Bill was published – RACO has said they believe the Government has ignored it.
In their contact to members RACO said that its concerns centre around how the Bill was published before the publication of the Committee report.
“This means that the Committee’s report, a product of several weeks of intensive hearings, deliberations by Committee members, and submissions from [various expert groups] appears to have been disregarded, or at the very least not considered by the Department of Defence, who pressed on and published the Bill without waiting for the recommendations of the Committee and the outcome of the Pre-Legislative Scrutiny Process.
“It begs the question as to what is the purpose of the PLS process, if a Department can simply ignore the process, and also disregard the parliamentary oversight function that is supposed to be provided by the Committee?,” the email read.
RACO said that the second stage debate on the Bill took place last week but ”many interested members of the Oireachtas Defence Committee” were out of the country on business.
Government Chief Whip Hildegarde Naughton, when confronted on this issue on 30 April by TDs, defend the move.
Deputy Cathal Berry strongly criticised the timing.
“We have concerns that the chamber will be poorly occupied, which would reflect poorly on the House,” he said on that occasion.
The Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl dismissed Berry’s comments and said that the next opportunity to raise issues will be in the third Committee stage.
In the email to RACO members the group called out the lack of democratic participation in the new legislation.
“As members of Óglaigh na hÉireann, but also as citizens of this state who value and believe wholeheartedly in the democratic process, the answers to these questions should be of fundamental importance to all of us,” the email stated.
When contacted about his group’s criticism RACO General Secretary Lieutenant Colonel Conor King said the officers “deserve fair play”.
“What we see is the Department trying to rush through legislation through a false sense of urgency, without having any regard for consultation with either of the representative associations or the oversight function of the Oireachtas Defence Committee, yet insisting that they should influence and control external oversight in the DF to the exclusion of the voices of DF members,” he said.
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