Royal Irish Regiment debate:The Ulster Unionist Party annual conference officially called for the retention of the home battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment despite warnings that such a stance would be futile and counterproductive.
While RIR Iraq War veteran Col Tim Collins advised that Ulster Unionists must concentrate on winning a generous severance package for the soldiers, David Burnside, speaking on behalf of the party leadership, said the home element must continue.
"Ulster Unionist Party policy remains abundantly clear - the RIR home service should be retained to provide military aid to the civil power. They should be retained in addition to a 5,000-strong regular garrison," he said during a special debate on the regiment.
The former South Antrim MP called for special recognition of the home element of the RIR, which is to be phased out by 2007, through the striking of a UDR/RIR home service medal. "There must be no attempt to airbrush out of Northern Ireland's history the service and sacrifice of the RIR home service as has and is happening daily with the history of the RUC," he said.
"To secure and maintain a stable and peaceful future, this province needs a locally-recruited, armed back-up to the civil power. We believe that is best provided by the continuation of a home service presence from the Royal Irish Regiment," he added.
However, Col Collins said that the 3,000 RIR home battalion soldiers should be proud of what they had achieved. "They stood their ground and accomplished their mission." The bottom line was they had "fallen victim to the relentless march of peace", he said.
Now the onus must be on achieving a generous redundancy package that reflected the important contribution they had made to the peace process. It would be dangerous to deal with the issue as the DUP was doing through a "cloud of emotion" because that might not serve the interests of the soldiers.
Col Collins, however, proposed that elements of the home battalions should be subsumed into the Territorial Army, which often provides back-up for the British army, so that their experience could be used when police needed support to deal with civil disturbances. "They have a unique capacity for dealing with public order situations that should be available within the Territorial Army," he said.
Eddie Sheppard said there was too much acceptance that the RIR would be phased out by 2007, as the British government had decided. "Why do we accept that they are going to be disbanded. We should not accept that, we should hold out for the retention of the home battalions," he added.
Ross Hussey, a former part-time RUC reserve constable from Omagh agreed, arguing that a home service element should be retained. He believed Sinn Féin and the IRA were working to an objective of a united Ireland by 2016 and if that could not be achieved peacefully they would revert to violence. "This is not the time for the Royal Irish to go," he added.
Col Isaac Clarke, who served in the Ulster Defence Regiment and RIR for 27 years, praised the self-sacrifice of the thousands of people who served in the regiments including the 263 serving and former soldiers killed. However, he did not think it would be possible to stop the disbandment and the focus should be on getting "the best deal" for the soldiers.
