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The Commission on Defence, Terms of Reference.

We need a force structure that is capable of managing the domains of responsibility that we have. That means listening to military expertise that is driven by a desire for capability, over civil advice that is driven by cost https://twitter.com/DefenceIreland/status/1322871104357150720

We must review the fact that 79% of our military is only capable of operating on 9% of the territory that we are responsible for defending.

That's before we get into questions over why we have 9 ships, with only an establishment for 7 crews & only strength for ~5 crews.

Defence is a collective responsibility. So the Irish approach needs not only to be whole of Government, but whole of society.

We want to be a good European & Global actor, therefore we must have the hard conversations about contributing & benefitting from defence investment.

On the theme of hard conversations, we must establish an independent Armed Forces Pay Review Board.

I hope such a board would recommend the immediate increase in DF core pay.

It is simply egregious that we have allowed a situation where DF pay is supplemented by social welfare

We must have fluidity in our defence organisation's talent management systems in order to better retain talent in the operational fold. We should expose people at a younger age to the values of the Irish Defence Forces through a scheme similar to the UK's @CCFcadets

The tweet above being only a snapshot of the possibilities, there are ample opportunities for cross-functional initiatives that would optimise operational talent throughput & retention, but it needs the willingness of Govt to break the cycle of failure, fund it & drive it forward

We need proper parliamentary oversight of the @IRLDeptDefence as well as accountability.

The inertia in Irish Defence is directly attributable to the unwillingness of the secretariat to deliver on their own set white paper objectives.

We should be demanding a better performance

A prime example of DoD creating failure by design, the Reserve Defence Force offers the Defence Organisation significant progressive opportunities & value for money, yet it has been structured in 2012 like a standalone army from the early 1900s

Dare I say it, but we need a reorg

To build an operational Reserve that effectively supports the Irish Defence Org, the Commission must look at:

- Amending the Defence Act to support mobilisation
- Employment status of Reservists
- Employment protection legislation
- Employer support
- Employer engagement

The commission must assess whether the CoS needs to be the accounting officer for the operational budget of the DF.

The DoD secretariat has demonstrated that such responsibility is beyond the limits of their expertise, thus we must assign the role to the appropriate executive.