The policy of continuous recruitment to the Defence Forces, introduced two years ago, will continue, the Minister, Mr Smith, said yesterday. The Department of Defence would take its share of the pain of changed economic circumstances, but would not be "the fall guy" for others.
Mr Smith was speaking at the 10th annual conference of the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers (RACO) in Tralee, where he confirmed the purchase of 25 additional Armoured Personnel Carriers, at a cost of about €1 million each.
Savings made from the reduction in strength of personnel and revenues obtained from the sale of properties had been re-invested in the Defence Forces, he said.
The decision not to proceed with the purchase of medium-lift helicopters for the Air Corps had been "painful" but an inter-departmental working group was looking at alternative funding solutions.
"The policy of continuous recruitment which I introduced has proved very successful to date and I intend to maintain it," Mr Smith said in the face of concern that the Defence Forces would once again be seen as "a financial reserve" for other departments.
A total of 1,047 applications were received in the 2002 cadet competition advertised in January, the Minister said.
In a stinging attack on IBEC, Lieut Col Paul Allen, president of RACO, said public service employees should not be asked to accept pay cuts by private sector employers, who benefited from public wage restraint in the good times. They were now told to wait again because there was a downturn in the economy. Acceptance of IBEC's proposals of a pay freeze for the public service, followed by rises in line with EU inflation would amount in real terms to cuts of up to 2.5 per cent.
"Profiteering" and greed by some members of IBEC had driven up the rate of inflation for everybody. The colonel said he did not want "a return to the bad old days when the Defence vote was seen as a financial reserve for the big spending Departments to plunder".
There could be no further cuts in the Defence Forces, they had reached the 10,500 numbers target with 250 personnel in training, "and there can be no recruitment embargo now", Col Allen said.
Medical services for the forces had "essentially collapsed", the conference heard, with several motions on the agenda dealing with issues from the shortage of medical personnel to medical benefits in retirement.
The services had deteriorated due to the shortage of Army medical officers. Annual check-ups, essential to an organisation that depended on physical fitness, as well as check-ups for those returning from and going overseas were not being carried out.
Ancillary services too were affected. The Curragh training centre, the main one for the Army, had no physiotherapist.
There were calls to restructure the service where necessary and allow treatment by civilian medical practitioners. "We need a fresh approach to solving the problems in the medical services," said Comdt Brian O'Keeffe, general secretary of RACO.