Defence Forces Review 2008

Healer of the Nation
I have given the Army’s experience in the Congo as much space as this because it is a vital
episode in the evolution of its relationship with Irish society. A lesser Taoiseach than Sean
Lemass – and, by God, Ireland has had a couple – might have shirked the unpromising
opportunities and the awesome risks involved. His decision to deploy was vital and liberating,
both for the Army and the Irish nation, and I don’t believe you can understand how the Irish
people view themselves in the world today without the Congo, and the sacrifices it called for.
However, there has also been a negative aspect to all this. It has entered the political culture
of Ireland that service with the UN is the primary duty of the Defence Forces, and that all
UN service is good. Neither is true. The Army is the sworn defender of this Republic. That
is its primary duty: to defend it against internal terrorist subversion, and from external threat:
and though it has shown itself more than willing when asked (but not asked often enough,
in my view) to tackle subversion, it has never been sufficiently equipped to deal with any
kind of foreign threat. This fundamental weakness is only possible within a political culture
which forgets the primary duties of the Defence Forces: and the distraction of UN service has
compounded that problem.
For when the PDF was serving with the UN, other participant countries would give us the lift
which we denied ourselves. Thus even today, as one of the richest countries in the world, our
Defence Forces have no transport planes or heavy-duty helicopters. The shocking truth is that
the debilitating dependency on the UN as a means of defining ourselves militarily has blinded
us to the harsher realities of life. Before the arrival of the present mini-fleet of helicopters
(still far too few), how could we possibly have rapidly transported a large number of Rangers
to deal – say - with an airliner hi-jacking in Shannon By calling in the RAF, perhaps, as we
had to call it in so often to help in air-sea rescues, and upon which we were totally dependent
after the Air India terrorist bombing in 1985 (An occasion, I might add, on which members
of the Naval Service showed outstanding physical courage in recovering bodies from sharkinfested
waters, a devotion to duty which the Indian government greatly appreciated, even if
we in Ireland - as a whole - did not).
The UN has also allowed us easy routes, in which inertia became the “logical” option, both
for soldiers on effortless overseas pay, and for a political establishment which refuses to face
up the requirements of a real state to defend its land, its waters and its airspace. Thus the
Lebanon fixation was allowed to develop. I do not make light of the courage and sacrifices
of the soldiers who served there during the early days of the mandate: in every sense, they
were real, and lasting, and I am sure that some men remain traumatised and crippled because
of their terrible experiences there. But in time, Lebanon – which I had the misfortune to visit
during some of those earlier travails – later became a relatively cushy number for an entire
generation of soldiers, who would return to the same village, year after year, where they
knew everybody, and everybody knew them. This was not real soldiering, but holidaying in
a familiar resort, but with a rifle. Worse still, some soldiers became thoroughly politicised by
their chummy Lebanese experiences.
All in all, I believe that the length of the Lebanon mandate did some serious harm to the
Army. But the harm was not permanent, and meanwhile other missions were causing our
better soldiers to refine their many other skills. Bosnia – another country which I reluctantly
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