What’s your taught on military spending? I think its needed as we have no capability to mount any kind of defense and the old think of everyone else will defend us is a risky gamble!

26 comments

  1. A lot of people don’t like the idea of funding the military as they don’t see a need in their day to day life. You will hear stuff like What about the Homeless and housing crisis etc etc. it’s a polarised topic.

  2. Well if we are to spend money on something it should at least be a radar system that can track objects even if they turn off their transponders, then actual wages for the people who are supposed to operate the stuff, we have the habit of buying equipment and having no one to operate it because we don’t pay them. Maybe some jet powered aircraft that can at least intercept or deter incursions into Irish airspace.

  5. The first thing that needs to be addressed is retaining the soldiers. I’m in 10 years and everybody including myself is either working on leaving or have already left. There is no reason for us to stay beyond an overseas trip. Our barracks is like a ghost town everybody is double jobbing in it. Struggling to fill our regular 24hr duties. Something has to be done with the pay and pension or it’s not getting any better.

  9. We need to start paying the defence forces that we have already properly first before we start expanding our defence forces

  10. Our military besides infantry forces is non-existent. Lets face it like, we are just a very weak country and that’s just how it is.

    No point in increasing spending on the Defence Forces when it could go to housing or education since they’re largely inactive outside of UN peacekeeping missions. Doesn’t matter if we put the whole budget into the Defence Forces, if Britain falls, so does Ireland, as much as we wouldn’t like to rely on Britain for sovereignty.

  11. It’s not a priority. Nobody is going to attack us. We are not under threat. There’s always drama in the world, we tend to stay out of it and wait for things to pass. It serves us well.

  12. Yeah, nah.

    Brother in law and a few mates down through the years were in the army. Shit pay, shit accommodation at the barracks, full of bullies and bitchy arguments. Sounds like a fuckin’ nightmare.

    On top of that, no one is going to “invade Europe”, as you so elegantly put it.

  13. Best defence is international diplomacy which we are actually quite good at.

    Have a think about the level of expenditure needed to get us in line with EU averages and ask yourself is it worth it for a phantom threat.

  14. There’s too much talk about “Ireland’s defence” these days and it’s absolute nonsense.

    We’d want to talk talking offence. I say we pick some name out of a hat and go and fuck them up.

  15. If you compare Ireland’s defence spending to similarly sized states like Austria, Slovenia, Denmark or Cyprus it’s absurdly low. If you look at non NATO states (for now anyway) like Austria, Sweden, Switzerland and Finland they’re all neutral but aren’t necessarily relying on others to defend them. Ireland likes to pretend it’s neutral but in reality just expects NATO to come to it’s aid.

    Now, if Ireland is serious about reforming it’s defence the bulk of the money should be going on the air corps and the navy. Ireland is, to put it bluntly, an island with a huge sea area to defend. Whilst the army has a role to play the navy and air corps should be the primary service arms.

    Anyone who supports Irish neutrality should support strong defence forces, far stronger than currently.

  17. Tbh Russia wouldn’t have the capability to perform a land invasion. Their naval fleet is out of date and has a massive distance to travel. So they’re left to use their Air Force or submarines to perform strikes and maybe hope to air drop in some special-ops personnel. So there are very few military assets that we really need.

    We should have a proper navy given the size of our EEZ. I’d guess we’re 5 ships short of a fleet large enough to manage our interests. Then we should probably pay existing forces well and ensure our tactical units are well drilled in case of terror attacks.

  18. Lads, you see the state of the health service, housing, mental health services, mica housing, the other housing catastrophe ? Jesus H Christ. The reorganization and money needed.

    Except lads, we’ve had these problems for years when the Defence budget was lower than Luxembourg’s and the Department of Defence returned €20 million unspent even out of that low budget. We’ve been taking money from Defence for years and spending it on bs for local politicians and every other department and they still can’t solve those problems. So just give it a rest about the money.

    Let’s call it as it is: we have no interest in paying to defend the country because we think there’s no threat. We’re happy the Brits will do it for us while we bitch about them. We bullshit on about the IRA and independence and the vast majority of us would happily give up independence if it came to it. We think we’re great examples of peace building and showing the way to humanity and most of them never heard of us and care less. It’s just the Irish way: cute hoorism and loud talk. We should just drop the pretence and admit we are never going to pay for Defence.

  19. Maybe we need to spend more on educating the nation about use of the digraph in the English language. I swear, it’s as if there’s a collective speech impediment once you drive far enough south.

    Meaning: It’s thought, not taught.

  20. I’ve no thoughts, because I have no idea what the defence forces do in Ireland. I know the Navy carry out fishery protection in our waters, but other than that, I don’t know what the others do on a day-to-day basis. Can someone enlighten me? Genuine query – I’m not trolling.

    If we increased military spending, how much would need to be spent, and what would it be spent on?

  21. We should be investing in our air-corps more than anything as that’s our weak link. We’ve no ability to detect aircraft and no ability to intercept them. We need a proper ground radar and at least 8 jet fighters capable of intercepting. There’s lots of options out there. A Gripen C costs about 30 million per plane and would be more than capable. Our PC9’s are due to be replaced soon anyways – we may aswell replace them with something that can actually do the job.

    We don’t need 40 jet fighters and can’t really afford it, but we can definitely afford 8 – 12 to have a real ability to police are skies. We could gradually build up to 24 fighters in the coming 10 – 15 years, but we need to start with at least the ability to police our skies.

  24. Well, maybe we could have a ‘National Service’ for boys and girls from, say 18 to 20, which would include all kinds of useful work like learning plumbing, cooking, carpentry, housekeeping, electricianship, clothes-making, basic building skills, household management, budgeting, the identification and destruction of bullying groups, etc; as well as doing socially responsible work that would teach those involved how society works, like cleaning up the rubbish dumped along the ditches all the way along the Featherbeds and equivalent – as well as learning how to use military formations and instructions and the traditional cell structure of the IRB, in case guerrilla action is ever (God forbid) needed.

    Apart from fitness and good feeding, this would provide a networking structure of friends that could successfully destroy our rigid class system. It would give opportunities to become ‘officers’ to people who might never otherwise have such an opportunity.

    And free university for excellent performance could provide educational opportunities to people who might never have such a chance.

  26. American-Israeli living in Dublin here. Yes, Ireland gets along for the most part with everyone, but Glorious Comrade Putin doesn’t care. The Republic shouldn’t have to rely on the RAF to keep communist aircraft out of Irish airspace- that should be the Republic’s job. Allies are great, but when the shit goes down, Ireland should be able to do what’s needed by itself.

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