OUR FLOATING DRUG SQUAD IS ALL AT SEA

The proposed overhaul of the Defence Forces takes a narrow, land-based
approach that all but ignores responsibilities beyond the shore, writes
Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent.

When there's hardly a teenage home in the State that isn't concerned about
drugs, it must be depressing to know that a drug trafficker has 20 times
greater chance of travelling undetected to Europe through Irish waters.
That's a Naval Service estimate, based on evidence given during the Brime
drugs trial in 1994. It should be no great surprise.

This island's 2,700-mile coastline lost its unofficial "coastwatch", with
the automation of lighthouses over the past decade. More than 90 per cent
of this island's trade is by sea, and only a handful of 900 landing points
have any form of harbour policing, let alone surveillance on and offshore.

With a fleet of eight ships to monitor Europe's second-largest maritime
area, Ireland's patrol capability is the equivalent of less than two Garda
cars for the whole island, according to the Representative Association of
Commissioned Officers (RACO) naval committee.

One would never know this from the draft White Paper on Defence, which
takes a narrow, land-based approach that all but ignores responsibilities
beyond the shore. If the policy as outlined is put into effect, the margin
of success for illegal importers may very well widen. And the
recommendations in the 1998 review of the two defence wings, carried out by
Price Waterhouse and accepted in principle by the Government, will
effectively have been shelved.

The key section of the draft White Paper is paragraph 3.3.3 of the text,
which outlines the roles of the Defence Forces, and which gives priority at
sea-to-fishery protection. While the authors have acknowledged in paragraph
2.3.10 that the "single most important area of externally based crime
arises from drug trafficking", they state that these matters are
"essentially policing issues" - for the Department of Justice.

Similarly, search and rescue is the concern of another department: Marine
and Natural Resources. Small wonder that the text has angered both serving
and retired Naval Service and Air Corps personnel, who believe the document
is less a "vision" and more a device for saving money and passing the more
expensive buck.

Strikingly, no account appears to have been taken of changes in national
and international legislation, which have given the Naval Service enhanced
powers at sea. Under the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, officers can now board
vessels suspected of drug smuggling outside the 12-mile territorial limit.
New obligations relating to pollution control make this State responsible
for all incidents out to the 200-mile limit.

Last year, the fleet was involved in 11 extended Joint Task Force drug
interdiction operations, along with the Garda Siochana and Customs and
Excise. Last November's pounds 15.8 million seizure of cannabis on board
the British-converted trawler Posidonia off west Cork was one of the most
successful. The Garda Siochana ran a training course in drug interdiction
techniques for Naval Service personnel, both at the Garda Training College
in Templemore, Co Tipperary, and at the Naval Base in Haulbowline, Co Cork.

Unlike the initial Price Waterhouse view of the Army, which provoked a row
over reduction in numbers, the subsequent Price Waterhouse report on the
Naval Service and Air Corps was regarded as essentially positive. The
consultants accepted that both wings should retain their multi-tasking
roles; and also advised against the trend to contract out certain services,
such as search and rescue, on the basis that it was more cost-effective, in
terms of training, personnel and equipment, to focus such resources within
the military where possible.

The consultants recommended that the Air Corps be equipped with four
medium-lift helicopters to replace the Dauphin helicopter fleet, which has
already been acknowledged as unsuitable for the search and rescue work it
is required to do. They did not buy into Naval Service demands for a
12-ship fleet, but did state that 1,144 personnel, and an additional crew
for an eighth ship, were required.

The draft White Paper puts the ceiling at 1,144 for all eight vessels - a
deviation from Price Waterhouse - and does not allow for anything like the
pounds 235 million cost required. It also fudges on key decisions to
re-equip, while recognising the urgency of addressing the Dauphin
helicopter fleet; instead, it recommends formation of yet another
interdepartmental committee - to be known rather grandiosely as a "High
Level Civil-Military Planning and Procurement Group".

The White Paper recommendation that an unspecified number of vessels be
used for fishery protection only, with a reduced crew, is regarded as both
"insulting" and "illogical" by sources close to the consultancy review
procedure. "If half the fleet is restricted to fishery protection, when
only 50 per cent of ships can be at sea at once anyway, this effectively
means that this island's maritime area would be patrolled by two ships,"
the sources comment.

The Nautical Institute, representing both naval and mercantile officers,
has described the draft White Paper as "an abdication of responsibility"
for an environmental resource 13 times this island's land equivalent and
valued at pounds 30 billion, according to UN computations. "The draft
appears to define defence as all about war and peace, when it should be
about responsibility and ownership," Gary Delaney of the institute says.

The former second-in-command of the Naval Service, Capt Peader McElhinney,
describes the text as a "fantasy" that bears no relation to reality. Capt
McElhinney points out that the White Paper doesn't even refer to Ireland's
Marine Designated Area, and effectively surrenders sovereignty at sea.

The maritime policy document, published during the last general election
campaign; and the text carries few of the promises made by the Minister, Mr
Michael Smith, in 1996 when he was shadow spokesman on Defence. One of
those promises was to publish a White Paper within a year of returning to
office. It is also at odds with a recent pledge by his new Cabinet
colleague, the Minister for Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Frank Fahey.
Minister Fahey pledged earlier this month to make a case at international
level for extending the outer limits of the Irish continental shelf.