We need houses and hospital beds not crazy Top Gun talk

ON WEDNESDAY The Irish Times decided, without the slightest hint of embarrassment, that the most important story in all of Ireland that day was a ridiculous tale about how the collective strength of our Army, Navy and Air Corps is incapable of defending the motherland against outside threat.

Christ Almighty, stop the presses! In a final report to the Government, the Commission on the Defence Forces says Ireland faces security threats from inside and outside the country and recommends urgent reform.

But, here’s the thing. All this up-tooling and reform of the Defence Forces comes with a massive financial penalty which the taxpayer will be expected to shoulder.

Bringing our Defence Forces into line with other like-sized countries would require our military spending to rise by (wait for it) about 300%. That means the current annual expenditure of €1.1bn would explode to well over €3bn.

Apparently, this drastic rise in spending is necessary because of superpower tensions, such as Russia’s badgering of Ukraine in Europe, and China’s bullying of all and sundry in the South China Sea, plus threats from jihadists, including some Irish people, who have been further radicalised in Middle East conflicts.

The suggestion to rebrand the Air Corps as the Air Force is a scary signpost pointing in the direction of vainglorious Top Gun pursuits. This could result in our new Air Force acquiring a squadron of between 12 and 24 armed interceptor jets, with the necessary trained personnel. Presumably, with that kind of firepower we would be in a position to order, with menaces, some random Ryanair passenger plane to land at Dublin, Cork or Shannon, like your man Alexander Lukashenko did in Belarus last year.

All this can be regarded as a complete reshaping of the narrative as far as the Defence Forces are concerned – a spin that’s going to cost us a bomb. Literally. We’re being set up to accept that our current defence spending is entirely miserable at only about 0.5% of national output. Even neutral Austria is at 0.8% and little Norway, with a similar population of 5.4 million, is lashing out 1.9% of their GNI. Trouble is, Norway has the largest sovereign wealth fund in the entire world, at about €1.5trillion – as compared to ours, which is called the national debt.

More money for jet fighters, guns, bombs and bullets in a country where we’re incapable of building a sufficient number of houses or providing enough hospital beds – my god, are they all mad?