Commission on the Defence Forces - Reserve Discussion

[Truck Driver]

Yes but PDF (and RDF) recruit and 2-3* training syllabi are very different now.

There are some very basic and useful areas (both life & military skills that are essential section level tasks) on both PDF syllabi that aren’t on either. But there is a balance I absolutely agree.

We need continuation syllabi on some of these and not to be run at unit level

Agree with the statement above (bold)
Only way to ensure matching standards is to run this at Bde / All Army level

[trellheim]

Units weren't incentivised to make people non effective (in fact the opposite was the case),

ahh Deontas i gCabhair flashback (Grant in Aid) remember that lol

[DeV]

Agree with the statement above (bold)
Only way to ensure matching standards is to run this at Bde / All Army level

Not the reason I was thinking of .... centralised to create critical mass. No point in 4 Inf battalions running 60mm mortar course for 4 students each, run 1 for the whole Bde

[Truck Driver]

Not the reason I was thinking of .... centralised to create critical mass. No point in 4 Inf battalions running 60mm mortar course for 4 students each, run 1 for the whole Bde

There is that also

[Poiuyt]

There was no major change in 1996 but the numbers have been on a continual slide more or less since and thats a fact . They were static from about 13 years - 1983-1996 at about 15,000 . Pay, uniforms, grat problems have existed all the way through these periods ( it was brutal when I joined in 86) . The answer lies elsewhere.

I would put as lot of it down to the divide between those who wanted to make it a more professional organisation and those who wanted to maintain the status quo.

Additionally I would put it down to a PDF who couldn't care less.

My experience of the RDF has been of a constant struggle to improve standards - everything being a fight. Huge amounts of effort made to achieve the bare minimum and then watching it all being pissed away. For example, years spent recruiting, training and leading only for 2 platoons to turn up on a training night in the pissing rain only to be left there, in the rain, because no one had the keys to any training rooms, no shelter for anyone, no rain gear. It was the last time that half those people were ever seen.

The 2013 re-org was the last straw for me. Saw several excellent officers get shafted - Positions given to the "Good ole Boys" who drank tea in the mess. Several young active officers, who for years had taken all sorts of crap in order to get the job done, thrown onto the scrap heap, forgotten about and ignored. I knew 1 officer who didn't find out his final appointment for months, that appointment being "Scrap heap". I saw many of them walk, or just disappear, not willing to continue the futile struggle. Another I knew recalled his Greek Mythology and called it a Sisyphean task (Sisyphus was forced to roll an huge boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down every time, for eternity.).

We all remember that having a course done was a huge black mark AGAINST you for promotion or advancement in your new unit. It was all wasted and punished effort.

And the PDF - They needed us in the 70's & 80's but things changed in the 90's. After that they didn't care anymore. Don't blame them, not their problem. Being made Commandant of an RDF Battalion was a retirement present or a punishment.