Breaking Ranks E-Book

Michael Martin

• Herausgeber: THP Ireland
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 409

Beschreibung

In the late 1980s, the 'army crisis' was dominating headlines in Ireland. Complaints of poor pay, low morale and unsatisfactory conditions for those serving in the Defence Forces were growing louder against the background of a government accused of being indifferent and an army hierarchy accused of being incapable. From amidst the turmoil, a group of women stepped up to pursue the rights of their men. Political crisis and a general election followed, but a commission established to examine the Defence Forces ignored the call for soldiers to acquire their own representative body. This book reveals for the first time, the deep-seated philosophies, tensions and reservations between Ireland's military and its government from the foundation of the State to the present day. It explores in detail the events that led to the successful pursuit of the democratic right of association for members of the armed forces in Ireland. It articulates the concept of the citizen in uniform and the special relationship between members of the armed forces and society. This is the story of the breaking of ranks.

Leseprobe

BREAKING RANKS

BREAKING RANKS

THE SHAPING OF CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN IRELAND

MICHAEL MARTIN

First published in 2016

The History Press Ireland 50 City Quay Dublin 2 Irelandwww.thehistorypress.ie

The History Press Ireland is a member of Publishing Ireland, the Irish book publishers’ association.

This ebook edition first published in 2016

All rights reserved © Michael Martin, 2016

The right of Michael Martin, to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 8083 8

Original typesetting by The History Press

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Peculiarities of Military Life and Military Intervention

2. The Origins of the Irish Armed Forces and the Evolution of Civil–Military Relations in Ireland, 1913–24

3. Early Strained Relations

4. Civil–Military Relations after 1924 and Dissatisfaction in the 1980s

5. A National Executive for Soldiers, a National Army Spouses Association (NASA) and a General Election

6. Military and Political Responses

7. Constitutional Challenge

8. Military Ethos Critically Examined

9. New Statutory Engagement and Residual Matters

Appendices

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

There are hundreds of individuals past and present who dedicated themselves to the pursuit of better conditions in the Irish Defence Forces and played a crucial role establishing the basic democratic right of association. They are far too numerous to mention individually but groupings must be acknowledged in any written work about this subject. They include members of the National Army Spouses Association who first highlighted the many problems being experienced by soldiers in the late 1980s and were first to call for the establishment of a representative body. Soldiers of the Eastern Command who prompted others from the Western, Curragh, Southern Command and Naval Service and Air Corps, to consider the setting up of a representative body. Soldiers, sailors and Air Corps individuals who worked at local level throughout the country to organise committees, events and information at local level. The chaplaincy of the time who forthrightly outlined the extreme difficulties and poor morale being experienced by personnel. The individual serving officers who quietly supported the rights of their subordinates. The politicians who listened and raised questions in parliament about the unfolding crisis. Irish journalists who gave voice to concerns that many had never heard from the formerly secretive world of military service. The civil servants of the Department of Defence, who (once the decision had been made to provide representation) dealt in a most equitable and professional manner with the new and somewhat inexperienced representatives. And finally the fraternal associations of prison officers, An Garda Síochána, the European Organisation of Military Associations (EUROMIL) and the Irish trade union movement who all advised and encouraged the inexperienced military personnel who sought a legal means by which they could address their basic issues of pay and conditions.

Despite the lack of attention paid in the Irish context to the significance of the emergence of representative associations in the armed forces, in the research for this book I have been very fortunate to have had the kind co-operation and assistance of the Secretary General of the Department of Defence, Mr Michael Howard, in accessing Department of Defence files not yet in the public domain. These files are unique in the sense that they came to be produced at a time when the Irish Government were demanding explanatory perspectives from the military authorities with regard to their attitude and beliefs in the whole exercise of command and discipline, and the fundamental nature of the relationships between the military and the State. Equally, the assistance of the former Chief of Staff, Lt Gen. Dermot Earley, in gaining the co-operation of all units of the PDF paved the way for widespread co-operation from personnel of the Defence Forces. Unfortunately, in the period between the time he provided me with such assistance and commentary and the time of writing, he passed away. Former and current serving members of the army, navy and Air Corps were most helpful as were Permanent Defence Force Other Ranks representative Association (PDFORRA) national executive, their headquarters staff and secretariat. The presidents of EUROMIL and PDFORRA together with their general secretaries were most helpful. I am sincerely grateful to them all.

All those not directly involved in the events but supporting their spouses and loved ones through extraordinarily difficult challenges where legal proceedings and the threat of expulsion from their careers weighed heavily, among them my wife Geraldine. Thanks is due to all of them in helping to shape modern Irish military and social history.

Michael MartinCork, Ireland 2016

Introduction

The subject of this book concerns itself with the origin of PDFORRA (Permanent Defence Force Other Ranks Representative Association). Much is drawn from my PhD thesis entitled ‘Breaking ranks, the emergence of representative associations in the Irish armed forces’ and from my own considerable involvement in the events described. The influences that led to the enactment of legislation providing for statutory representative associations had many strands. These included a public campaign by army wives, a deliberate pursuit of the right of association by serving members of the Permanent Defence Force (PDF) and my own constitutional challenge against the State in the High Court. Military historians for centuries have exercised themselves on the weapons, campaigns and structural features of armies in a multiplicity of countries and conflicts. Few have managed to portray soldiers as a group in any capacity beyond their military persona. Bartlett and Jeffrey’s (eds) very readable A Military History of Ireland sets out to address areas other than the above, but its contributors soon descend into types of warfare and strategy.1 It seems the reality is that many modern-day soldiers are the only ones who see their soldiering as just one, albeit important, part of their daily lives. In a small country like Ireland where the vast majority of service personnel live off-base, their integration into mainstream society is probably more pronounced than elsewhere. Perhaps this is why comparisons with other members of civilian society became inevitable.

Since 1988 the Permanent Defence Force (PDF) in Ireland, comprising of the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps, has undergone significant cultural, regulatory and institutional change. These developments have impacted almost every level of the force and have wrought important change in two areas in particular: internal and departmental human-resource management. In addition and in a much wider sense, the framework, operation, and context of civil–military relations in Ireland has been transformed. Internally, the relationship between the officer corps and the enlisted ranks has changed significantly. New structures have redefined their respective roles in specified areas towards each other. These same structures have also altered the context and operation of the relationship between the civilian Department of Defence and the officer corps. In a very new departure there is also now a formal method of communication between the enlisted ranks and the Department of Defence. In the intervening period since the passing of the Defence Amendment Act of 1990, the political and structural profiles of the Irish armed forces have changed, and, with them, the political and structural contexts of civil–military relations in Ireland.

The activities and aims that precipitated the creation of representative associations for military personnel in Ireland were at one time thought to threaten the exercise of command and discipline in the force. These same activities and aims were most certainly in contravention of government policy. The level of control by a civilian government over its armed forces is a crucial matter and the balance of power between the two must always be weighted heavily in favour of the elected administration. This being the case, it is essential to have an understanding of the events in Ireland and the motivation for them. Matters that would prompt those in authority to believe there was a threat to the security of the State need to be understood. Equally, if fears proved unfounded regarding State security and army discipline, there is a benefit to be gained from the study of the particular circumstances in Ireland. Such a study may well help in the consideration of whether or not to provide similar structures to other forces in other countries.

To many soldiers, sailors and airmen who would have enlisted as members of the Irish Defence Forces or accepted a commission up to the late 1980s, the absence of representative associations or unions was accepted as a fact of life, a condition of service. Sgt Michael Gould (retired) maintained that during his entire military service of forty-two years in the Irish Army there was never a need for such bodies because, ‘the forces always looked after their own very well’. He believed that membership of any type of a representative body would indicate ingratitude and disloyalty to the service.2 In 1990 the Chief of Staff wrote that membership of any organisation (other than one approved by the military leadership and the State) would be ‘unnecessary and divisive’.3 One serving naval non-commissioned officer (NCO) remembers all personnel being assembled in the ratings dining room on board the Irish Naval ship LÉ Deirdre. It was a formal gathering that they were ordered to attend. The assembled ranks were then ‘addressed’ by the coxswain (who was officially the senior rating on the ship), who told them that the seeking the right of association, or membership of any organisation seeking it, would be ‘tantamount to mutiny’.4 The context of such a remark from a superior in the navy is important to outline. In any armed force the charge of mutiny is extremely serious. In Ireland if violence is associated with mutiny it becomes an offence for which conviction once carried the death penalty.5 If this was the official attitude towards military representative bodies, it is understandable that any personnel at the time who felt the need for representative bodies in the forces would have been reluctant to express their view, particularly in the company of a superior officer. One Irish Navy senior figure at the time, Commander McNamara (retired) was commanding officer of the naval depot at Haulbowline Naval Base in County Cork, Ireland. He was fundamentally opposed to the introduction of representative bodies. ‘I would have seen them impacting very negatively on the Defence Forces and still do.’6 Yet despite these deeply held official views, there were others who evidently believed otherwise and who thought it sufficiently worthwhile to endanger their careers in the Defence Forces to try to establish representative bodies that could speak freely and represent the interests of those with whom they served. By 2007, after seventeen years of representation, the incumbent Chief of Staff, when asked about the impact of representative bodies on the Irish Army as a whole, emphasised the ‘great contribution’ made to all aspects of the armed forces by the Permanent Defence Force Other Ranks Representative Association (PDFORRA) and the Representative Association for Commissioned Officers (RACO).7 These are the very same organisations that his predecessors thought would undermine the whole structure of command and discipline and represent a possible threat to the Irish State itself.

The question arises as to how this sea change in hierarchal attitudes occurred. What measures were adopted, if any, to allay the fears of those who believed that the right of association leading to the ‘organising’ of military lower ranks was a danger to State security or to the integrity and command structure of the Defence Forces? How was the government of the day, which was advised by the military hierarchy in these matters, persuaded to ignore that advice? After all, the General Staff of the forces were supposed to be the professionals in this area. Somehow, in Ireland, the difficulties that these scenarios would present to the delicate civil–military relations were overcome, but how? Does the Irish experience open up a new dimension to the conduct of civil–military relations worldwide?

Unlike the American, British or French armed forces, Irish military personnel of the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps now have a structure through which they can negotiate at all levels of the Defence Forces and, where applicable, with relevant Irish Government departments on matters of pay, allowances and certain conditions of service. For the first time, enlisted personnel are now part of the machinery that would not be envisaged in the usual concept of the operation of civil–military relations, particularly those espoused by Professor Huntington in his seminal work The Soldier and the State.8 These structures provide the right whereby representatives of serving military personnel can speak freely to the press and media about certain matters in the Defence Forces. This constitutes another departure from Huntington’s idea whereby only an officer corps is competent to advise the government in a ‘professional’ capacity.9

Until 1990, Ireland was similar to the above-mentioned nations in that its enlisted personnel had no input into the decision-making process that governed expenditure and policy on pay, allowances and normal human-resource considerations. A government-appointed independent commission established by the Irish Government in 1989 was chaired by Senior Counsel Lawyer Dermot Gleeson SC. It was tasked to look at the pay and conditions in Ireland’s Defence Forces and offered the first-ever opportunity for enlisted personnel to express their opinions to any institution or body outside of the Defence Forces on matters that would have an impact on themselves.10 Today the two statutory bodies, PDFORRA and RACO, that were set up under national legislation, provide for a system of consultation and negotiation on a wide range of matters. Negotiations take place with elected representatives in an industrial relations-type environment that was not ethically or legally possible before the passing of the Defence Amendment Act of 1990. The mechanisms by which this can now be done required significant cultural and regulatory change. This change did not occur from within. While most senior army officers in Ireland fully understood the frustration felt by their subordinates in matters of poor pay and conditions, they nevertheless strenuously opposed any developments that might have led to what they perceived as ‘unionisation’ of the armed forces. Accordingly advised, the government not only opposed the idea but actively prohibited the forming of any representative groups in the Defence Forces. The eventual change in attitude of the government was brought about by a sustained public campaign carried out initially by the spouses of soldiers and eventually by serving members of the PDF. It involved and incorporated the use of the media, political lobbying and, eventually, a High Court action. However, during these events the government and the army, despite conceding that something had to be done to alleviate what was then being called the ‘army crisis’, still opposed the formation of an independent representative association. What eventually changed their minds?

Many areas and disciplines were encompassed by these events. They included the problems that prevailed in the Defence Forces in the late 1980s, the responses of the serving men and women to what they saw as low pay and poor treatment, the crucial role played by the National Army Spouses Association (NASA) and the position and activities of officers of the PDF (some of whom were in command of dissatisfied subordinates) in their approach to representation. Also the attitudes and activities of the various politicians who contributed to the debate about professional representation and the right of association for soldiers. The influences of European political and military perspectives, and in particular those of the European Organisation of Military Associations (EUROMIL), were crucial. The law as it stood in Ireland at that time and the interpretation of the Constitution were also very important. All of these influences were set against a background of genuine concerns of the General Staff of the Irish armed forces, particularly with regard to their fears on the ramifications for managerial adaptation to any new structures. The subsequent actions and reactions of the above stakeholders contributed to shaping Ireland’s response to the demand for representation in the armed forces. The officer corps, some of whom were sympathetic and helpful to the enlisted personnel, had problems of their own. Their right to associate was affirmed in the wake of the initiatives that led to the passing of the Defence Amendment Act 1990.

It is my intention that this book should help analyse the initiatives surrounding the developments that led to the formation of representative associations in Ireland. I hope to consider to what extent a type of military ‘intervention’ took place and to shed light on the emergence of the notion of the ‘right of association’ among Irish Defence Force personnel and their families, and on the campaign that helped bring it about. The following chapters will examine the ethical opposition of the army and consider the public response to the arguments made by those involved. Media reports and Irish parliamentary debates track the lead-up to significant alteration of official attitudes towards the question of the right to representation in the workplace and of fundamental freedom of speech for a particular group of Irish citizens.

Was what happened in Ireland in the late 1980s a political radicalisation of an enforced apolitical section of the community or was it the acquisition from a reluctant government of a fundamental human right?

This book will provide new knowledge in the study of civil–military relations regarding how the State and the army in Ireland interacted with each other during this period. It will do so in the context of previous events such as the so-called ‘mutinies’ in the Curragh in 1914 and in the new State in 1924. It will seek to pinpoint the real issues that led to the reversal of thinking in the sensitive area of State security and policy. Thanks to unprecedented access to secret files of the Department of Defence, it will provide an insight into the fundamental arguments made by either side in their pursuit of, and opposition to, representative associations in the army. Finally, it will contribute to our knowledge of civil–military relations by highlighting and adding a new dimension to it for scholarly consideration and, perhaps, for its application in other countries in this field of study. According to Huntington:

Military security policy deals with external threats to the State. Internal security policy deals with the threat of subversion – the effort to weaken or destroy the State by forces operating within its institutional and territorial confines. Situational security policy is concerned with the threat of erosion resulting from long term changes in social, economic, demographic and political conditions tending to reduce the relative power of the State.11

He goes on further to suggest that there are ‘operating’ and ‘institutional’ levels in the implementation of policy. While the operating policy deals with the requisite resources to meet the contingency threat, institutional policy is the manner in which operational policy is formulated and executed. It is here that civil–military relations constitute the principal institutional component of security policy.12

In Ireland in the late 1980s issues emerged that gave rise to institutional consideration and responses in at least two of Huntington’s designated areas of security policy, namely, the internal security policy, and the situational security policy. This book provides an opportunity to examine the motivations, considerations and catalysts for the process in the Irish context, in order to gain a new understanding of elements of civil–military relations as yet unexplored. It is all the more important, for the broader subject, that much of the evidence will be from internal sources, given the almost secretive nature of the day-to-day running of a military organisation such as Ireland’s professional volunteer army. In addition to the internal traditions, codes and regulations of an operational armed force, there is a cultural reluctance and in most cases a regulatory prohibition on members of the armed forces to engage with the outside world in any public fashion. Traditionally there is even less opportunity for members of the armed forces to challenge and seek change to existing frameworks from within.

Everywhere, including in Ireland, the operation of any military unit is dependent on the exercise of command and control. The military environment is one where a strict hierarchal system of discipline is deemed to be of central importance to the successful operation of any military force. In this regard, Finer maintained:

Centralisation of command, the hierarchal arrangement of authority and the rule of obedience, are all necessary to make the army respond as a unit to the word of command …13

Orders are expected to be carried out immediately and without question. Welch and Smith acknowledge that soldiers are trained to: ‘Follow commands quickly, efficiently and without questions’.14

Almost universally, there is a military cultural assumption that a superior officer, by virtue of his rank and training, will always be making the right decision in issuing an order. Even if that may not be the case, there is a regulatory requirement that his or her subordinate will carry out the order anyway. The underlying principle of ‘do it now, and if there is a question raise it later’ was well portrayed in nineteenth-century French military regulations, where the right to protest was permitted, but only ‘after the order had been carried out’.15 In an examination of the loyalty and obedience of the German officer corps, Demeter observes:

In any army there must be obedience; but in Germany every officer – senior officers included – had been taught for half a century (partly under pressure of the First World War) that obedience must be placed far away and above all other military virtues and treated as an absolute value, as a sacred taboo.16

Military training instils the need for immediacy of response to orders, an absolute requirement, which can often mean the difference between life and death. Institutionally and culturally, subordinates comply with the orders and requests of their superiors. There is no situation where a difference of opinion or a fundamental disagreement on how something should be done arises. In Ireland as in most countries, it is an offence against military law not to comply with all lawful orders. Paragraph 131 of Ireland’s Defence Act 1954 is very specific:

Every person subject to military law who disobeys a lawful command of a superior officer is guilty of an offence against military law and shall, on conviction by court-martial, be liable to suffer penal servitude or any less punishment awardable by a court-martial.17

In addition to the strict code of discipline that prevails in military organisations, there is a highly defined demarcation of tasks. These can often be more dependent on rank than on expertise. Decisions of major managerial impact, together with those of seemingly minor import, are usually required to have the approval if not the actual authorisation of a superior. Although there are numerous strata of ranks in different armed forces, there is a universal constant, that is, the division of the officer corps and enlisted personnel who are made up of the privates and the non-commissioned personnel like corporals, sergeants and so on. All middle and senior management is entrusted to officers. Enlisted personnel are basically the workforce of the organisation. In the Irish forces as elsewhere, this rigidity of structural relationships is backed up by the physical reminder of the subordinate/superior hierarchy in the form of rank markings and uniform. It is ever present in military life. Rank differences are visible even in everyday working dress. Separate dining, recreation and living quarters are assigned to the three strata of private, NCO and commissioned officer ranks. However, the most distinctive differences really occur in the division of labour that rank imposes. Virtually nobody from among the enlisted ranks is ever tasked with any duties that would involve making representations on behalf of the military force or interacting with external agencies.

In the past, all proposals to the Irish Government regarding military logistical and budgetary requirements were traditionally compiled by senior officers of Defence Force Headquarters (DFHQ). All military personnel assigned as aide-de-camp to the President and the Taoiseach (prime minister) were and are commissioned officers. All captains of State ships, pilots of State aircraft, and representatives at the United Nations (UN) are drawn from the officer corps. In such a system there was little requirement or desire for the upper ranks of the commissioned officer body to consult with the lower enlisted ranks on any of these matters. It was not surprising that claims for pay for enlisted personnel were traditionally processed by senior officers. There would have been a number of justifications for this. Senior officers would have had the resources, through various sections of DFHQ, such as planning and research (P&R), where they could formulate claims. In these military sections they could research past claims by both military and civil bodies. They could gather information from public-service pay trends, conduct research, and engage with employer organisations on remuneration and allowances. However extraordinary it seems, it was rarely the case that they would consult with enlisted personnel about pay claims. From the senior-officer management perspective, pay for the ordinary enlisted personnel was just one of many budgets they had to seek from government. The same senior officers were often also responsible for procurement, seeking resources other than pay from government, and so would have been in a position to assign priority to various segments of the defence budget from which all funding comes. There would have been a traditional view that officers, having higher educational entry requirements, would have a better understanding of what needed to be done. In any event, it was the officers who always made the case for increases in pay and allowance for all ranks.

In the late 1980s in Ireland, the whole question of poor pay and conditions in the army ended up as a subject of national debate. Perhaps, had enlisted personnel been better informed about the process whereby claims for improved rates were being made on their behalf, and had they been included in the process itself, the quest for the right of association may not have arisen among them. The military hierarchy at the time were making constant strenuous efforts to have pay and allowances increased. Former Chief of Staff, Lt General Gerry McMahon, recalled his own efforts to improve conditions in the Curragh command involving his making a decision to bring in and to consult NCOs about the amalgamation of colleges. General McMahon was the exception rather than the rule when it came to engaging with his senior NCOs in anything that resembled ‘negotiations’; however, he conceded, ‘it was a different army then’.18 Whatever local commanding officers could do about local conditions, the fact remained that at that time senior military personnel formulated the claims in respect of pay. McMahon recalls:

In the area of pay and allowances military management was tasked with that. The 1980s were truly appalling as regards the economy. The Defence Forces were stretched with the border.19 The government were unable to support and pay an army that they were totally dependent on. They ignored them, the government, the Department of Finance, and their agents the Department of Defence ignored them. I remember being on the periphery of a conversation when the then Chief of Staff Lt. General Tadgh O’Neill expressed extreme frustration at the situation with the fact that nobody would listen to him anymore. I think the time for something like representation had come. But there were a lot of fears about it at the time.20

When the notion of a representative body to make claims for pay first began to emerge among enlisted personnel, there was little enthusiasm for it among military management. Commissioned officers who would have been aware of the process of making pay claims to the Department of Defence did not see the forming of representative associations as the answer to tackling the pursuit of better pay. ‘Despite the extent of dissatisfaction with pay, allowances and others matters, the officer body never saw representative associations as being a part of the solution.’21

It is noteworthy that during the period leading up to the reported ‘army crisis’, continuous efforts were being made by the military hierarchy to seek better pay and allowances. Their efforts were not successful. Nevertheless, despite any ongoing disappointment in this or any other field, the nature of military thinking is to keep going, regardless of conditions, and to carry out the task in order to always complete the mission. From the time of the earliest fighting forces, this tradition has served armies well in the context of military conflict, in many instances being a matter of life and death and of survival itself. Arising from this need, one of the most important if not central ethos of the military is the ‘can do’ approach. What this means is that whatever the difficulties, the inconvenience, the challenges or perceived obstruction in the way of a task or the fulfilment of an order, it is imperative that orders are followed and that every attempt is made to fulfil the instruction as issued. In any army, complaints that might impede the fulfilment of a task or mission are neither entertained nor permitted. In recruit training there are a number of examples of how this culture is inculcated in newly enlisted personnel. One is taught to respond to any request or order from a superior by shouting, as loudly as possible, ‘Yes sir’. During marching drill and exercises in ‘square bashing’ it is forbidden to use one’s initiative to avoid obstruction and instead it is imperative to continue obeying the last order until a new one is issued. Petty Officer Jim Halligan, who served in the Irish Navy in the 1970s and 1980s and undertook his basic training in Cork Harbour, Ireland, on Spike Island and in Haulbowline, recalls:

When we were doing our square bashing training, the Petty Officer in charge of us marched us around the drill square and then down along the depot lines where he gave the order for us to wheel left. This routing had us marching down an inclined slipway towards the sea. When the lads in the front stopped inches before entering the water, the instructor balled them out.22

Responding and acting on orders without question or hesitation regardless of how bizarre they may seem is an integral part of military training. It is also part of the process of removing individuality and the capacity for an individual (as a military person) to make certain assumptions or take certain actions based on their own view or experience. On enlistment in most armed forces, personnel are assigned a number that stays with them for their entire service. Every item of uniform, kit and clothing is marked by the recruit with the number and, when responding to questions about who a person might be, personnel are trained to give number, rank and name, in that order. The uniform itself prohibits the possibility of any individualism in terms of dress, as do the hair-length regulations, the dormitory-style accommodation and the prohibition of any movement or travel away from base without a pass granting permission. Enlisted personnel are required to do what they are told, not what they think they should do. Finer outlines the importance of the principle of military obedience thus:

This obligation to unquestioning and prompt obedience is enhanced by the depersonalisation of the soldier. The army is too big a machine to reek of individuals, and the soldier becomes a number. Extraneous considerations are thereby thrust aside, and obedience to superiors recognised by their rank and insignia becomes the dominant or sole criterion of action.23

These practices and this tradition are thought to be absolutely essential to any military force from recruit- or cadet-training stage up to and including situations when a unit will be expected to complete its mission, either in a hostile area of conflict or in a passive administrative situation in peacetime. Welch and Smith describe these organisational characteristics as ‘military cohesion’:

In addition, a host of long standing army practices stress the totality of the institution and diminish the uniqueness of the individual. Consider the basic training given to a raw recruit in the American army. He is stripped of his civilian clothing, his hair, even his first name (Joe Jones becomes Private Jones); incorporated into a large, impersonal organisation; severed for several weeks from friends and family. The uniform, salute, PX [Discounted shopping outlets for military personnel] and clubs provide new forms of identification and stratification. Cohesion must be maintained in the stress of battle, hence the emphasis on solidarity found within the armed forces.24

Regarding these peculiarities of military life or any other matter in the Irish armed forces, the airing of any criticisms by serving personnel to outside parties was not tolerated. Communicating with any section of the media on any matters relating to the forces was strictly forbidden by military regulation paragraph 27 of A7, which is promulgated under the Defence Act 1954:

PART VII. – COMMUNICATION OF MILITARY INFORMATION AND PERSONAL PUBLICITY.

Interviews, etc. - prohibition of:

27. The granting of interviews or the divulging of information by any officer or man of the PDF to members of the public on matters pertaining to the service or to the conduct thereof is forbidden. Save in the circumstances mentioned in paragraphs 30 and 31 no officer or man will authorise or purport to authorise the publication of any matter concerning the service or having relation to public business or questions of politics. Comment, if any, in publications, lectures, broadcasts or talks, touching on questions of a political nature – whether national or international – shall avoid strictly any reference which might be construed as being of a controversial nature.25

If personnel felt the desire to complain, there was an internal ‘redress of wrongs’ system provided under the same section of the DFRs, A7. This system set out a mechanism whereby soldiers who either had a complaint or felt that they had been wronged by a superior were entitled to bring the matter to a higher authority. This redress system required that a complaint be made at the lowest level and to the nearest superior. It would be considered first by an immediate superior and then sent to the next level for consideration, then to the next, and in theory the complaint could go right up as far as the Minister for Defence. Despite this provision, there was a perception among Irish military personnel that this self-regulated internal enquiry system was flawed and unjust towards the complainant. If a private had a complaint against his treatment by his or her superior officer, such as company commander, the first stage in administrative bureaucracy saw colleagues supposedly investigating colleagues. Richard Condron, a former company sergeant and vice president of PDFORRA, gave an insight into how this system was perceived in the army:

Other than pay we always had grievances. Mostly, they were about courses and promotion. We always had grievance procedure but it didn’t work. The famous redress of wrongs never worked, the people that were involved in it were the same people that were hearing the case. It was an absolute joke. What happened with the likes of courses and promotion was that you would end up with someone who was dedicated, who was qualified, and who would probably be the senior person, now not being promoted for some obscure reason probably because some commanding officer did not like him or maybe didn’t like the look of him. That person then became frustrated with the system.26

When an opportunity was afforded to military personnel to make a case to the Commission on Remuneration and Conditions of Service in the Defence Forces (later known as the Gleeson Commission), the team tasked with contributing submissions on behalf of NCOs did not spare any sensitivities. Part of their submission regarding the redress of wrongs system stated:

The procedure is now held to be a meaningless ritual with little or no hope of actual redress in the end. There is also the perception that if a person applies for redress he may become the subject of ‘special treatment’ or some form of victimisation. The procedure has now lost all credibility and is now more or less ignored by most NCOs. This has led to a good deal of pent up frustration on the part of personnel with grievances of one sort or another and a more effective system of redress urgently needs to be put in place.27

The team went on to propose a whole new system of redress involving members of the judiciary, the labour court and even members of parliament. The officers’ team recommended the establishment of a military ombudsman operating from outside the PDF with certain investigative powers and the capacity to make recommendations to the minister. The Gleeson Commission, in response, acknowledged the shortcomings of the system, recommending an examination of the procedures with a view to introducing new ones and suggested consideration be given to the establishment of a grievance board made up of a serving officer, an official of the Department of Defence and a member of the (as yet to be established) representative associations. Later, in 2004, legislation provided for the introduction of a military ombudsman following years of lobbying and negotiations by the PDFORRA, who first raised the issue of the need for one as early as 1992. This sense among military personnel that their world was enclosed and complaints about it could not be articulated outside of the strict bounds of military regulation adds to the peculiarity of life in the profession. Furthermore, it increases the isolation and ‘apartness’ noted by Huntington and Janowitz as being one of the ingredients that need to be taken into consideration when assessing the state of civil–military relations in any particular situation.

From the inception of the legislation in Ireland’s defence acts, orders from a superior officer were absolute. Any deviation from them resulted in a subordinate being guilty of a serious offence.28 In a cultural environment such as that of the late 1980s, many would have believed it inconceivable to permit a situation whereby any of the activities of the military body as a whole would ever be subject to a process of negotiation. Negotiations in an industrial-relations model would represent the ‘management’ and the ‘workers’. Such a means of engagement was incomprehensible in the armed forces. The evolution of the trade-union movement in Ireland and elsewhere sought to put management/owners and their ‘subordinate’ workforce on equitable if not equal levels for the purpose of negotiations. The process of respective consultation and negotiation assumes at some level the right of the worker to disagree or object to management initiatives or instructions. This concept, however, would be alien to the structured command and control system that was and is relied upon in countless armies around the world. Unlike a civilian factory that may grind to a halt as a result of an industrial dispute with little but financial consequences, it can be argued that any impediment to the work of the armed forces could lead to loss of life or even the undermining of the security of the State.

Given the gravity of such scenarios and the subsequent establishment of statutory representative associations that now engage in negotiations, a number of questions emerge. How did the army in Ireland find itself in a situation where many of its decisions would eventually become subject to the need for agreement or consultation? What changes took place in the defence policy and how did they impact on civil–military relations? Were developments in Ireland at the time indicative of an erosion of civil–military relations? To what extent, if any, did the military intervene in politics? Does the political intervention of enlisted personnel represent a greater or lesser threat to civil–military relations? Does the evolution of representative associations lessen the susceptibility of military intervention? Has intervention occurred in Ireland before? In the face of the emerging reality that such a particular scenario was about to evolve, how did the traditional military hierarchy respond to the request for the ‘right of association’? Did European resolutions and organisations help Irish soldiers formulate a perspective on these matters? Did Irish soldiers in turn influence European personnel in the pursuit of their aims? In the military culture of the 1980s, how did the General Staff of the army and the government perceive the effect of serving personnel and their families publicly criticising conditions of service? The specific and trenchant opposition that was cited by the army and the government will be outlined later; so what triggered a change of heart?

1

Peculiarities of Military Life and Military Intervention

There are many ways in which to consider how Ireland’s armed forces managed to acquire the right of association. This could be construed as a political study examining the ways and means by which politicians were persuaded or influenced to make changes and pave the way for new legislation. It could be looked at in the context of women’s studies, whereby a group of like-minded women with a common purpose set in motion a series of events that led to the empowerment of a group of men. One could decide to approach the subject from a management or business point of view in which a particular workforce overcame the entrenched opposition of their leaders to acquire concessions that had been forcibly refused. It could even be considered from a human-rights point of view where one section of society had held itself as being denied a basic human right and worked within democratic and legal parameters to win that right. However, the discipline of civil–military relations is probably the best context from which to examine the emergence of representative bodies in the Irish armed forces in the late 1980s. This field of study has a broad corpus of work that deals primarily with the special relationship between a military force and the State in which it serves. Where this relationship is healthy, a military force serves the State through its government without question. Where this relationship breaks down, consequences can follow that, depending on cultural or geographical tradition, can range from minor fracture to full military overthrow. That special relationship became strained in Ireland during this period. The grievances of soldiers regarding their pay and conditions became the catalysts for their seeking the right of association, a right that neither government nor the military leadership were prepared to consider. As mentioned earlier, it could be argued that an examination or an analysis of these events should be grounded in the discipline of industrial relations or radical politics. Studies that concentrate a little outside of mainstream labour activities such as Devine, Lane and Puirséil (eds), Essays in Irish Labour History (Dublin, 2008), would be enhanced by the inclusion of how representation came about in the Irish armed forces. The continuing research of Forster, Edmunds and Cottey (eds), outlined in their series of studies such as Soldiers and Societies in Post-Communist Europe (Hampshire, 2003), could benefit from an examination of the events outlined in this book, events that occurred in Ireland during the very period in which they ground their analysis. It is conceivable that a new chapter could be added to the next edition of Coakley and Gallagher’s (eds) Politics in the Republic of Ireland (Oxon, 2005), regarding how the Irish Government now interact with the military. However, while it is certainly true that there is an interesting study to be gleaned from these disciplinary perspectives, the primary impact of the events regarding the relationship between the military body and the government is more firmly positioned in civil–military relations. It is at this interface that new knowledge emerges regarding the hierarchal relationship between the military body and the government in Ireland. It is from this perspective that the extent of military intervention can be gauged. It is during the events that occurred between 1998 and 1992 that the deeply held attitudes to command and discipline in the Irish Army were not only forced to the surface, but became an issue of challenge between the army and the State it served.

Up to now, countries from the United States to Africa and from Asia to South America have been examined,1 and although much has been written on the early relationships of army and State-makers in Ireland, there is still very little that has dealt with either enlisted personnel or representative associations. Throughout writings and theoretical proposals to date, a common assumption would appear to be that this civil–military relationship is gauged on the interaction between the officer corps and the government on one hand, and the officer corps and their ideal of ‘the State’ on the other. Much of the work examines the propensity of the military to ‘intervene’, a term that covers everything from political lobbying by the military of incumbent governments in relation to procurement, budgets and pay, to mutinies and the full final military coup d’état. In his examination of post-colonial African civil–military relations, Welch contends that there are three types of army ‘involvement’ in the politics of the State:

the ‘non-involvement’, where there is a total absence of meddling in politics; the mutinous activity arising, in the main, over pay and conditions which he says is the first step in the involvement of the military in political life and, finally, the full political involvement embodied in the seizure of control.2

In The Soldier and the State, Huntington suggests that the more professional the officer corps, the less likely the possibility of intervention.3 He dismisses enlisted personnel completely from any consideration in the context of civil–military relations on the basis that they are not professionals. Very little of the literature gives any consideration at all to a role for lower ranks. Finer’s work Man on Horseback suggests that any political interaction with the government constitutes ‘intervention’ and asks how soldiers are ‘politicised’.4 Many consider officer training, officer-corps corporate identity and their bureaucratic functions as being crucial in the consideration of the level or complexity of civil–military relations in a particular country.5 In Ireland the events that led to the emergence of the representative associations could easily be categorised as falling within a definition of ‘intervention’ in the context of civil–military relations. What is new to debate is an examination of the Irish context, and in particular the consideration of the fact that enlisted personnel played a central role in shaping a substantial alteration in the actual civil–military relations of the State.

The internal written requests of soldiers to establish a representative body, the political and social activities of the spouses group NASA, the political criticism of government by the opposition parties and the media, European parliamentary resolutions, European military representative associations and the propensity for a lengthy constitutional court case all seem to have culminated in the passing of the Defence Amendment Act 1990 in Ireland, which de facto sets out legislative parameters that define the basis on which elements of the military will ‘relate’, or engage with the government, in certain prescribed areas. These events at the very least constitute a shift in civil–military relations in Ireland and a new formal division of relations between purely military matters and social/military matters. Before examining the events that played out in the political arena that considered the situation as it prevailed in the Defence Forces at the time, it is important to outline the particular hierarchal environment in which a soldier operates.

Taking into account the common perspective that the military are unique in their responsibility to the State, in what Huntington calls their capacity for the ‘dispensation of violence’, the fact that no threat of violence was a part of the events in Ireland is worthy of consideration in the broader study of civil–military relations elsewhere. It will be useful to highlight the attitudes of the Irish officer corps at the time, which will give an insight into their particular perception of loyalty to the State versus loyalty to the government, an area that appears to be of great interest to the various contributors to the discipline of civil–military relations. In Ireland, an examination of the sequence of events, the relevant activities of the participants and the comparative issues in the context of civil–military relations will best help contextualise and define what happened, and what it means. Apart from issues of pay and allowances, which are common to all workers, the consideration of life under military law is a crucial element to the understanding of what happened in Ireland.

PECULIARITIES OF MILITARY LIFE