It would be helpful, I think, if we established a new law of Irish Politics: When something gets to the point where “call in the army” is a solution being greenlit by the Government, then the institution in question has completely failed:
The Government has backed a request for members of the Defence Forces to train as a contingency measure to potentially help the DAA tackle the queueing situation at Dublin Airport. pic.twitter.com/5U0wGn1aBi
— Richard Chambers (@newschambers) June 28, 2022
The Army, here, remember, are not on standby to perform complicated military duties, or even complicated civilian duties. They are being put on standby to perform basic tasks like operating airport security scanners so that Dublin can open more security lines. As I write this, soldiers of the defence forces are receiving training on how to operate one of those x-ray machines that detects whether you’ve tried to sneak a bottle of coca-cola through, despite being told that no liquids are permitted. The army, in other words, does not have any special skills here. They’re just an emergency source of extra bodies.
In fact, it’s worse than that: Remember, most members of the defence forces who will be called in to do this work get paid less than the people who normally do it. They’d earn more as full time airport security staff than they would as soldiers. So the airport isn’t just “calling them in”. It’s calling them in and exploiting them.
Thanks to @MiriamOCal on @RTE_PrimeTime for advocating for troops who may be deployed @DublinAirport for less than the National Minimum Wage of €10.50 per hour.
Ironic that military families now have to cancel their summer holidays, so that other families can go on theirs…🤦♂️ pic.twitter.com/PnMoFFZaC8
— Cathal Berry TD (@BerryCathal) June 29, 2022
This, by the way, in a country which had 129,500 people claiming unemployment assistance in April.
These jobs in the airport do not require college degrees. With all respect to our defence forces – indeed, out of abiding respect for them – they’re being asked to train up to do a job that literally anybody could be trained up to do. Which poses the question as to why the state is paying the defence forces to do two jobs, and paying over a hundred thousand people to do no jobs at all.
It is not as if Dublin Airport lacks alternative solutions: If they cannot get people to work in the airport based on current salary levels for such roles, then the obvious solution is to increase the salaries on offer. This problem has been going on now for months; it is not new. The Airport’s management have had several weeks since the last crisis at the airport to put contingency planning in place, and come up with a plan to address the crisis. “Call in the Army” is not a plan – it is, in fact, evidence that the Airport has no solutions of its own.
Which poses another question: If the Airport’s management is unable to solve a problem as basic as hiring people to work in the airport, why is the Airport management still in place? This is a basic duty of their job. It is what they get paid for. The fact that the Army is having to be called in to potentially operate the airport on their watch should, in a sensible world, be a fact that demands their immediate resignations.
It is notable, too, that the country’s other airports do not seem to be being affected by this problem. There are no calls to bring the army into Cork, or Shannon, or Knock. Yes, it’s true: Those airports have lower passenger volumes. But it is also true that their staffing levels were lower to begin with. If this problem is a general aviation problem affecting the sector as a whole, there is no particular reason to imagine that smaller airports would not also be affected. If you lose 20% of your staff, then there will be queues. That doesn’t change depending on the size of the airport to begin with.
The picture that is being painted here is that Dublin’s management are getting to grips with the problem by calling in the army. There will be those who paint this solution as a model of pragmatism and commitment – “we just want the job done, whatever it takes”. There will even be some readers tempted to applaud it. There should be no applause. There should be resignations, and, really, there should be a public enquiry. That it got this far is a national humiliation.