OUTGOING DEFENCE MINISTER Éamon Ó Cuív has announced one of his final acts in his brief tenure as Minister for Defence: saving the army’s only Irish-speaking battalion, based at a barracks in his home constituency.

Ó Cuív, who last week won re-election in his Galway West constituency, this afternoon said he had instructed the Department of Defence to specifically safeguard the status of An Chéad Chath, the Irish-speaking battalion, in spite of a reorganisation of the Defence Forces.

The battalion is based at the Renmore Barracks just east of Galway city – where Ó Cuív is himself based, and firmly in his own constituency.

Ó Cuív, a native Irish speaker who only took control of the Department of Defence on January 20 when Tony Killeen stepped down, said that the order to safeguard the battalion was issued last Thursday.

“As Minister for Defence, I believe it is fundamental to the whole character of the Irish Army that it would have an Irish speaking battalion,” Ó Cuív said in a statement issued this lunchtime.

He added: “It is logical that that Battalion would be based in the barracks nearest the largest Gaeltacht in the country.”

The retention of the battalion, he said, was in line with the commitments given by the outgoing government in its 20-year strategy for the development of the Irish language, which included the continued and developed use of Irish in the Gardaí and defence forces.

Ó Cuív also said that the Defence Forces’ Equitation School would be retained under the review of the department’s spending, saying the investment in the school was “minimal compared to the promotion that the School gives to the Irish horse at home and abroad.”

Ó Cuív – the grandson of former Taoiseach and President Éamon de Valera – is one of the two ministers currently holding three briefs, carrying the social protection and environment briefs as well as the defence one.

He is one of just three members of the outgoing cabinet who will take his seat as a TD when the new Dáil meets tomorrow.