Renting an army barracks now cheaper than owning one

An inter­est­ing series of adverts appeared in regional news­pa­pers in West­meath and Cavan this week. The Dept of Defence are cur­rently look­ing to rent space to train the Army Reserve in Mullingar and Cavan town. Noth­ing unusual there you might say, sure aren’t they both decent areas to have an army reserve ready and wait­ing? But the Dept of Defence is seek­ing to rent space in towns where two per­fectly func­tion­ing and widely dis­tin­guished army bar­racks were recently served clo­sure notices by Min­is­ter for Jus­tice, Defence and “Equal­ity” Alan Shat­ter TD.

 

Ad seek­ing army space in Mullingar

The clo­sures of Mullingar’s Columb Bar­racks and Cavan’s O’Neill Bar­racks this com­ing March will have a dev­as­tat­ing effect on both towns. Local esti­mates by peo­ple in the know in Mullingar says the clo­sure and relo­ca­tion of over 170 per­son­nel will take upwards of €10 mil­lion out of the town. Seem­ingly done at the stroke of a pen with lit­tle or no con­sul­ta­tion with army top brass and against stated Labour Party pol­icy by its leader Eamon Gilmore, the clo­sures will actu­ally cost the gov­ern­ment MORE money than it would to keep them open.

The clo­sures of the Mullingar and Cavan bar­racks, as well as Kick­ham Bar­racks in Clon­mel and Castle­bar Baracks was flagged as a cost-cutting, money-saving move. But since the clo­sure, which lead to the prin­ci­pled res­ig­na­tion of Deputy Willie Pen­rose from the cab­i­net, it has been revealed that the clo­sures make absolutely no eco­nomic sense no mat­ter what way you look at them. An Irish Times piece by Fiona Gart­land said the clo­sure of Mullingar and Kick­ham bar­racks and the relo­ca­tion of per­son­nel to other parts of the coun­try could cost more than €8.5 mil­lion. That was accord­ing to Defence Forces’ doc­u­ments seen by the paper, but seem­ingly not seen by Shat­ter and his advisers.

And now, on top of all that expen­di­ture, the Dept of Defence is to spend more money rent­ing space in both Mullingar and Cavan at high-end com­mer­cial rents! So, instead of train­ing and main­tain­ing the army reserve in build­ings they actu­ally own, it makes more sense for the Dept to rent com­mer­cial premises with a kitch­enette. The mind boggles…