Athlone’s Custume Barracks is to be strengthened by a cavalry unit of 130 personnel by the end of January as a result of the closure of Connolly Barracks in Longford due to budget-enforced cutbacks at the Department of Defence.
Four barracks - Longford, Letterkenny, Lifford and Monaghan, and St Bricin's Hospital in Dublin - are to close within four months and a total of 650 military personnel and 40 civilian workers will be re-located to Finner Camp in Co Donegal, Aiken Barracks in Dundalk and Custume Barracks in Athlone.
St Bricin’s staff will move to army headquarters in the Curragh.
“We’re just getting our heads around it today and putting the plans in place,” said Commandant Kieran Carey at Custume Barracks on Wednesday (October 15 ), the day after the announcement.
“The 4th Cavalry Squadron will be moving to Athlone.
“There’ll be nobody losing their jobs on this one - they’re just moving camps”.
The cavalry squadron with the Irish army is a mechanised corps and operate Mowags and light tactical armoured vehicles (LTAVs ) in reconnaissance operations.
“We’ll take all these skills into the barracks,” said Comdt Carey.
However, he did admit there will have to be “some re-adjustments and re-jigging”.
“We’ve got to consider the garaging of the vehicles,’ he said.
Although he did point out that, with a transport corps already barracked at Custume, a solid maintenance infrastructure is already in place.
“There are HR [human resources] issues with the guys moving location but we’ll try to come to the best possible arrangement for everybody,” said Comdt Carey.
“There are people working on this while we speak”.
It is expected that shortly after arriving in Athlone the cavalry squadron will be boosted by a delivery of new LTAVs.
Surprisingly, despite a drop in the Defence Forces budget and capital projects there is provision for a down payment of €6 million next year for 27 light tactical armoured vehicles.
Overall, spending including pensions will fall by 1.6 per cent next year to €1.06 billion at the Department.
Some capital projects, including barrack improvements, will be deferred and capital spending overall drops from €30 million to €25 million.
Nationally, this results in a reduction of military facilities from 29 to 24. The closures, however, have not pleased everyone.
“The announcement by Brian Lenihan that he is to close Longford Barracks will come as a massive disappointment to the people of the town and surrounding areas,” said local Labour TD, Willie Penrose.
“It must be pointed out that the Minister is not actually reducing the overall number of personnel, but is merely moving them from one facility to another.
“In those circumstances, just what kind of savings does he think he’s going to make?
“I am now calling on the Minister to outline precisely what plans he has for the parcel of land on which the barracks sits.
“The barracks generates some €6m annually, and the likelihood is that the closure will result in significant loss to the local economy, without conferring any benefit whatsoever”.
