An Cosantóir

30 DF PODCAST: MINISTER FOR DEFENCE SIMON COVENEY TD case. We have seen actually quite a significant increase in defence budgets in the last number of years but I think that needs to continue." "However", he said "they also needed to think beyond that and say how are we planning for the future beyond maintaining capacity to actually anticipate the potential threats and asks in five, 10 years' time or two or three years' time. One of those areas", he said," was certainly around cyber security". "We have actually quite a good capacity within the Defence Forces around a response to cyber but I think we need to build on it further. I would be very surprised if one of the recommendations coming from the Commission isn't to invest significantly in cyber capacity. We have seconded some people to the European Centre for Research in terms of cyber security in Tallin, Estonia, and we will learn lessons from that and look to apply them here." The Minister stated: "One of the things I have asked Aidan O'Driscoll and the Commission to look at is the balance between Army, Air Corps and the Naval Service and, of course, the Reserve which I think is a completely underutilised resource and, as a result of that, we have not seen anything like the kind of numbers we should have in the Reserve." "Talking about the Reserve", he added: "I want to change that, I have signalled that intent quite clearly. We have a new piece of legislation on defence and I have introduced amendments to that that can legally allow – because at the moment a members of the Reserve can't actually serve on overseas mission legally – I am changing that, we are giving the option to the Comm on the future of the DF to make recommendations in terms of what I hope will be quite a significant increased role for Reservists in a way that complements, obviously, the Permanent Defence Forces. "This isn't about Reservists doing work that Permanent Defence Force members would otherwise be doing and therefore limiting promotions and so on; it is actually the opposite; it is about creating a complementary pool of resource particularly in specialist areas where we can rely on that resource in certain instances both at home and abroad. "The whole idea of a single force concept is that you have a Permanent Defence Force that is essentially the core of your capacity in terms of defence capability and then you have a Reserve that you can access quickly and when needed, they can supplement and complement significantly what the Permanent Defence Forces are doing. And I don't think we have enough of that at the moment quite frankly." A lot of people in the Reserve had said to him "we do a lot of training but it kind of stops at that." He stated: "For me, reservists are not just for dealing with a national emergency if and when that ever happens. They need to be more involved in the day-to-day planning of defence capacity and peacekeeping operations. Hopefully, in the years ahead we will be involved in some quite complex missions, and I see no reason why Reservists, particularly with specialist skill sets, should not be a part of that." As regards future overseas missions, Minister Coveney said he was in favour of maintaining our presence abroad and even if the Commission was to recommend reducing this commitment, he would find that difficult to accept. "I think the role that Ireland played has in terms of peace-keeping missions abroad is a huge part of Irish foreign policy." Ireland, he said, had chosen to prioritise peace keeping in terms of Defence spending. While that will continue, whether or not the missions we are involved in will change was a different question. "We are in the middle of reviewing this very question actually, it is very much a debate lead by the Defence Forces and involving the Department. I have been involved in the number of discussions. We are assessing every mission – some involve very small numbers, others are much bigger such as UNIFIL." The challenge was how to ensure the missions we were involved in were adding to our capacity as a country that contributes to complex peacekeeping missions and maximises the input of the skillset that Ireland can bring to global conflict management. While we had a lot of experience in this space, Mr Coveney predicted that many peacekeeping missions of the next 10 years were going to be very complicated and quite difficult. "A lot of it will involve peace enforcement as well as peace management, a lot will involve disarmament, a lot will involve post conflict management in place likes the Horn of Africa where we will be dealing with difficult post conflict situations in terms of sexual violence and a whole range of other things." He said he believed Ireland has the sophistication in terms of training and peacekeeping experience to "really test ourselves in some of those very complex environments on behalf of the UN. I think we are going to be asked. We could say no, of course. But if we are to change the focus in terms of some of our missions, that means leaving some missions behind to focus on new opportunities. We have to ask ourselves the questions which ones might those be." But he wanted to reassure people that none of our current missions are going to change any time soon, with the possibility of one perhaps in Western Sahara where there's only two personnel. If the country was to make a strategic v Back in June 2020 Minister for Defence Simon Coveny TD visited the Joint Task Force alongside COS Vice Admiral Mark Mellett DSM in McKee Bks

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