Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to go back to the good old days when I served. The First Battalion in Galway paraded every day at 9 a.m. The battalion commander took the parade and the second in command was on parade, as were the sergeant major and the company commanders. Each platoon had a lieutenant, sergeants and corporals. Not so terribly long ago, I had to raise an issue whereby an entire battalion was being managed by a captain and three lieutenants. We constantly see 600 or 700 non-commissioned officer vacancies. Soldiering is a robust profession. Soldiers have to go through robust training. We expect them to go to places such as the Golan Heights and Lebanon. We expect them to be able to operate in severe conditions. We must train them properly. There is a large dearth of middle management. Will the oversight body go through this issue? I will throw all I have at the witnesses and they can come back at me. I do not want to delay them too much longer. The middle management issue is a big one for me. By and large, when there is a good spread of middle management the opportunity to behave inappropriately is reduced greatly.

There are two discretionary places on the board. When Ms King's colleague from ICTU was before the committee last week he rightly pointed out that representation is a partnership between management and the organisation. It is the conduit by which we can deal with problems before they become serious. Would the oversight body consider using the two places available to bring on ex officio members of the representative bodies? Even if it were not all the time, they could be there some of the time.

With regard to the trip to Cork, Ms Feehily particularly spoke about the lack of knowledge of the direct route to the ombudsman. Surely the representative bodies would have learned something by being there and hearing it first hand. This is a learning process for everybody involved in the Defence Forces. To some degree some are running to catch up. From this point of view, as a former trade union representative I am really concerned. The idea of partnership is massive. As Ms King knows I worked with the TUI. We had chief executive officers who worked in partnership with the union and we had chief executive officers who did not. Where a chief executive officer worked in partnership there was a tremendous relationship and many great things were done. Where there was one that did not it led to problems increasing.

It has been written about and it has been said publicly in the media, so it is not me saying it, that there is a toxic relationship between the uniform and the Department. The Secretary General of the Department is a member of the oversight body. If there is a toxic relationship, and I note that the oversight body is to look at the possibility of bullying or harassment of civilians, then surely we should also be able to look at the Department to see what problems there are there. Surely the Department has lessons to learn. We saw that the week before last when I asked about engagement on the Bill by Department officials. I was told that a letter had issued to the representative bodies the night before the Bill was brought to Cabinet. This is not partnership. It is not respectful of the role the representative bodies play. I keep going back to the same thing, and I will be making this point forcefully at this committee and in the Seanad. We need to have the Department side by side and working in partnership with the oversight body. It must learn first hand. It cannot be learning second-hand from the oversight body's findings. I will leave it at that. I thank the Cathaoirleach for letting me in a second time.