Plucky politician must take on Army
Irish Independent 29/12/2007 Letters Page
By Bishop Birch Place, Kilkenny
Saturday December 29 2007
During times of belt-tightening or an economic downturn, there is a general slashing of government funding to one organisation or another. Lobby groups are formed, with huge money spent on promoting a particular point of view or denouncing it, depending which side the government is on.
In the overall scale of things, nickel and dime arguments save little and only serve to camouflage the big spending departments, who waste taxpayer's money aided by a top heavy Civil Service overburdened by endless bureaucracy.
Your article headed "Defence Forces have become Dad's Army" (Irish Independent, December 23) should open the wider debate; we're a neutral country, so why do we need an army? Is it an army or a defence force?
Should, God forbid, our neighbour Britain decide to invade tomorrow, what would we do? Or more to the point, what could we do?
Sure, our peacekeeping duties and obligations need to be addressed, our navy need to patrol our waters to protect the fish stocks, stop drug trafficking and to protect our borders, but do we need the present numbers to do so?
History is littered with accounts of small groups of well-trained, well-armed, motivated soldiers who have thwarted armies. You could pare down the Irish Army to one quarter of its size or less, train them as an Elite Army Ranger Force, equip them with all the latest weaponry and still save the taxpayer not millions but billions having built a defence force that's the envy of the world in the process.
This scaling down would take years but we save from day one.
Do we have the political will to do it? The answer is a resounding no! Why? Votes -- pure and simple.
But I put it to you that the real losers are the hard-pressed taxpayers of this country. Let's face it, in its current form, our Army is obsolete and we are paying millions every year to support it.
I, for one, would gladly pin the next medal of bravery on the politician who has the foresight, guts and determination to deal with this issue, as he will need all three attributes to fight his way through the weak-headed politicians who presently populate Dail Eireann.
Irish Independent 29/12/2007 Letters Page
By Bishop Birch Place, Kilkenny
Saturday December 29 2007
During times of belt-tightening or an economic downturn, there is a general slashing of government funding to one organisation or another. Lobby groups are formed, with huge money spent on promoting a particular point of view or denouncing it, depending which side the government is on.
In the overall scale of things, nickel and dime arguments save little and only serve to camouflage the big spending departments, who waste taxpayer's money aided by a top heavy Civil Service overburdened by endless bureaucracy.
Your article headed "Defence Forces have become Dad's Army" (Irish Independent, December 23) should open the wider debate; we're a neutral country, so why do we need an army? Is it an army or a defence force?
Should, God forbid, our neighbour Britain decide to invade tomorrow, what would we do? Or more to the point, what could we do?
Sure, our peacekeeping duties and obligations need to be addressed, our navy need to patrol our waters to protect the fish stocks, stop drug trafficking and to protect our borders, but do we need the present numbers to do so?
History is littered with accounts of small groups of well-trained, well-armed, motivated soldiers who have thwarted armies. You could pare down the Irish Army to one quarter of its size or less, train them as an Elite Army Ranger Force, equip them with all the latest weaponry and still save the taxpayer not millions but billions having built a defence force that's the envy of the world in the process.
This scaling down would take years but we save from day one.
Do we have the political will to do it? The answer is a resounding no! Why? Votes -- pure and simple.
But I put it to you that the real losers are the hard-pressed taxpayers of this country. Let's face it, in its current form, our Army is obsolete and we are paying millions every year to support it.
I, for one, would gladly pin the next medal of bravery on the politician who has the foresight, guts and determination to deal with this issue, as he will need all three attributes to fight his way through the weak-headed politicians who presently populate Dail Eireann.
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