An Cosantóir

16 With the lockdown of Ireland in March 2020 due to COVID 19 and as a newly appointed officer to the Directorate of Reserve Forces I volunteered my services to the then Director of Reserve Forces, Col Colm O'Luasa and within days I took up my role. After 5 years of the single force concept the Directorate was created in 2018 to further the commitment to the Reserve Defence Forces and ensure the success and development of the "Single Force" concept. Having spent most of my career in 2 Bde CIS, being appointed to the J7 role took some time to get used to but it afforded me the opportunity of taking a critical look at the current array of syllabi for the RDF. I identified a number of key courses that needed to be updated and set about organising a working group to review them. We were plunged into other projects that will hopefully bear fruit for the RDF in the near future. Initially we were tasked with assessing the voluntary availability of Reserve members plus a skills survey as we needed to ascertain certain skills that could be of value in support of Covid-19 operations, such skills as medical, driving & IT. Lessons learned are a big part of what we do and one unexpected lesson for me was the training the Reserve should be doing as part of Recruit and 3* Training. These lessons learned have fed into our working group discussions on syllabi review which we have summited for approval. The re-establishment of the Directorate of Reserve Training is in my opinion a major boost for the Reserve and I hope that members will shortly see some tangible results from the work done over the past few months. Needless to say we are concerned with future training opportunities for the When the Joint Task Force was established in March a Reserve SO appointment was identified as part of the Force and Lt Col Iain Conlon, Comdt Lar Joye and myself from the Directorate of Reserve Forces reported to JTF HQ in McKee Barracks. Later Comdt Flood from 2 Brigade Cavalry Squadron joined the team. As well as running the Reserve Desk, all of us worked as Task Force Information Manager. On our first day there, it was a shock to the system when we walked into the gym in McKee Barracks, we were faced with a fully functioning and very busy HQ. Something that Reserve Officers have trained for on various courses in the Military College but not had the opportunity to be involved in. The HQ was fully networked and with a Chief of Staff, Director and Deputy Director, formations liaison officers, watch keepers and J1, J2, J3, J4, J5 & J9 cells one would expect in such an operation. As well as the Reserve SO Desk there were liaison officers from Naval Service, Air Corps, Central Medical Unit, Engineers supported by Legal & PR Branches. Working with SSO Information Management, Lt Cdr Conor Kirwan an agreed a rota was put in place and training quickly undertaken. Start time was 08:30hrs and once a handover was done we could set about the day's business supporting the JTF Director and the rest of the staff. The role meant that any requests from the HSE or Local Authorities came RESERVE SUPPORT TO "OPERATION FORTITUDE" By Lt Col Julian Ensor (AR) Directorate of Reserve Forces Reserve but we are planning for a Q4 return to training once circumstances permit but it will be more challenging due to the ongoing restrictions we will all have to live with. Lt Col Julian Ensor (AR) Joint Task Force

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