Vice-Admiral Mark Mellett is exactly how you think the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces and a former naval officer would look. In full uniform, cap under his arm, clean-shaven and not a hair out of place despite the barbers being shuttered for months.

I asked him if there was a resident barber in the barracks, but he tells me “I have an 18-year-old who does my sides and a 31-year-old, who is expecting our first grandchild in four or six weeks’ time, who does the top. And they learned that skill during the lockdown and you know what? I don’t think I’ll ever have to go back to a hairdresser.”

He is someone who immediately commands attention and it is only partly to do with his rank. When Lieutenant Colonel Eugene Cooke, who spoke with me before we sat down for the conversation with Mellett, respectfully stood to attention when Mellett entered the room.

The interview took place in Mellett’s office in McKee Barracks just outside Dublin’s Phoenix Park. It happened on the Friday before he travelled to Brussels for the European Union Military Committee, which happened to be the morning of the cyberattack on the HSE by Russian hacker group Wizard Spider. The Defence Forces have been instrumental in battling this attack. 

Mellett reflected on the use of cyber for nefarious purposes in general, including the manipulation of electorates, without going into detail about the work being done on this in Ireland.

“Some states are actually leveraging us now in the context of cyber, state-sponsored cyber is actually a reality. And the manipulation of public opinion in the context of undermining the institutions of democracy, trying to shape the outcome from elections,” he says.

“And I don’t want to comment on any particular election, but I think we all can figure whereby the influence of cyber would have shaped public opinion. And it’s not always the democracy or the citizens of the state. It’s often state-sponsored from elsewhere. That’s a worrying piece for us,” says Mellett without going into too much detail.”

Cybercrime is something that has been on Mellett’s mind for a while. Last month, he signed a submission to the Commission on the Defence Forces to allow those in the forces to play a central role in tackling disinformation and cyber attacks that could negatively impact public data and records. 

Mellett states that the service that the Defence Forces provide have evolved since the establishment of Óglaigh na hÉireann when Irish volunteers were at war. 

“They were fighting for the freedom of this state and they succeeded in establishing the state, as we know it today. And for that 100 years since, Óglaigh na hÉireann have been the bedrock of our sovereignty.

“And I think it’s important that we actually recognise the importance of what Óglaigh na hÉireann is. It’s ultimately an insurance premium to ensure that that sovereignty is solid and not open or vulnerable to shocks like Covid-19 or the next shock to come like a massive cyberattack that starts attacking our critical infrastructure, our water, our power, our grid. That we have the resilience to deal with that. And that’s the reason you pay the insurance premium for our Defence Forces,” says Mellett.

“My grandmother was a member of Cumann na mBan, so very much to the fore. And I remember listening to her talking about hand grenades under the beds, smuggling weapons to the active service units, the flying columns.”

Mark Mellett

As we spoke just before he was due to attend the European Union Military Committe, I wondered what Mellett’s view of being part of the EU as a neutral nation was, especially when it comes to the solidarity clause in the EU where the Defence Forces of any member states could be called to serve as a United Army. This almost happened after the terrorist attack at the Bataclan in France in 2015.

“The reality is that would you believe, matters like that, we will be talking about matters about that during the week, but at the end of the day, decisions with regards to whether they’re activated or not are really political decisions,” says Mellett. But if we look at it in the context of, I think France nearly called the solidarity clause or something similar after the Bataclan.”

“I’ll do what government asks me to do, and that’s my job. But I am quite certain that the competence with regards to the military remain sovereign in the state,” he adds.

Our meeting was scheduled on this day, which seemed like a hectic one for the Chief of Staff, on purpose, as after Brussels, he would have had to self-isolate when he came back and we would have had to speak over the phone. However, Mellett prefers to meet people for the first time face-to-face. 

*****

Despite everything that was going on, the room never felt tense. Mellett has been around the world for his work in the navy and the Defence Forces but he never lost his Co Mayo accent. He went through the various issues he has had to deal with in the nearly six years he’s been Chief of Staff, while sprinkling anecdotes from his own experience to drive points home throughout our conversation.

Mellett was born in 1958 in Dublin at Holles Street hospital, but grew up in his hometown of Castlebar in Co Mayo. 

Apart from relations who took part in Ireland’s War of Independence, there was no real connection in his family with the Irish Defence Force. 

“My two grand uncles would have been quite senior, one was a commandant and one was a captain and they were very active at that time in many of the ambushes that led up to our independence. They never really talked about it and I often think afterwards it was because of the actual sacrifices made.”

“And my grandmother was a member of Cumann na mBan, so very much to the fore. And I remember listening to her talking about hand grenades under the beds, smuggling weapons to the active service units, the flying columns,” says Mellett. 

He joined the FCÁ (Fórsa Cosanta Áitiúil) which is now the RDF (Reserve Defence Force) when he was 18 after being influenced by a former commandant called Mick Considine. 

“Mick actually served in the Congo back in the ’60s and he would have been part of the ‘Congo Tigers.’ I’m reading a book there on the Congo written by Michael Kennedy and Art Magennis. Mick features quite a bit. And what they saw at that time, some of it was quite horrific. But I never knew that of Mick. He never boasted about it.”

“But what he did was he organised a sailing course in Rosmoney, which is just outside Westport, and I learned to sail there. Then I went for the cadets when I was 18, or just as I was coming 18, I applied when I was 17, I joined when I was 18. I went for the Army cadets. I didn’t get the Army cadets, I got the Navy cadets. And the rest is history. So, I’ve been in the Navy for 45 years nearly,” says Mellett. 

The value of the Irish peacekeeper

Mellett has completed almost 48 years of service in the Defence Forces in total, and reflecting on that time he remarked on how valued and important the Irish peacekeeper is abroad. 

“I saw it myself in Afghanistan when I served in 2004 and I saw it 30 years ago when I was in Lebanon, the recognition that’s there on the skills of our peacekeepers, not just warriors in the terms of the professional side, but really diplomats who actually are great at pulling the various constituents that are key for peace, whether it’s the opposing forces, whether it’s interim government arrangements, whether it’s NGOs, whether it’s other actors that are, the civil society, wherever we are, the Irish peacekeeper is an institution like no other,” says Mellett.

He attributes this to a few things. The Irish know what it’s like to flee from and suffer huge loss in a country stricken by war, famine, and recession. And while the Irish have suffered this in the past, these are real-life crises for many across the globe. 

“I got all people sitting around the table with a view of trying to share the necessary information to secure that release. I remember it was actually a senior American general who said, ‘only a paddy could have done that.”

Mark Mellett

“That is the legacy of a small state on the western frontier of Europe and yet having credibility that is forged on its famine and its migration and oppression that really chimes with other countries,” says Mellett. 

This kind of resonance is what led Ireland to winning the seat on the Security Council last year, states Mellett. 

“We have that skill to bring conflicting and diverse perspectives into a ruck with a common cause. And it happens day in, day out and it’s happening today in those 13 missions in those 12 countries,” he says. 

Across these 13 missions over the years, a total of 70,000 individual women and men in the Defence Forces are standing up to violent extremists, freeing hostages, and in recent years rescuing over 18,000 people in the Mediterranean fleeing their country, seeing hundreds of people die and recovering many bodies, states Mellett. 

Mellett talks about his own experience of being able to bring together different bodies in a sensitive and complex situation in order to bring an Irish hostage home.

“It was Annetta Flanigan. She was an Irish citizen who was kidnapped there (in Afghanistan) back in 2004. And I remember pulling together what we call the Hostage Information Group. And the UN was there, Nato was there, International Stabilisation Assistance Force (ISAF) was there, the interim government was there. And I got all people sitting around the table with a view of trying to share the necessary information to secure that release. I remember it was actually a senior American general who said, ‘only a paddy could have done that’,” says Mellett.

*****

Ireland, like many EU countries, has witnessed people become more vocal on far-right ideas and conspiracy theories. Sometimes this has even escalated to violence during marches. I wanted to get Mellett’s thoughts on whether this growing group of people threatened the view of the Irish as peacekeepers. 

“There’s a very good book, it’s written by Robert Kagan, called The Jungle Grows Back. When I look at our business, there’s a continuum between the law of the jungle and the institutions of civil society. And our job as a security force is to nudge society towards those institutions where human rights are respected, where people are free, where the vulnerable are protected, wherever we serve,” says Mellett.

“I do have a concern with a shift away from the institutions that underpin multilateralism towards a growing sense of populism and unilateralism. And it’s tied in with, I think, the inversion of power in that anybody can have a view now. And it’s actually quite easy to build an army of anonymous keyboard warriors to push out a perspective that will shape the view of society and fake news,” he adds. 

Mellett saw the humour in some of the misinformation spread during the early days of the pandemic on social media which stated that the army had been deployed.

“There was one stage at the beginning of Covid-19 whereby I was listening to reports that the army was being mobilised and martial law was coming. I remember ringing Paul Reid and I said Paul, are we all attending the right meetings? He was scratching his head too, because this was just the way it happened,” says Mellett jokingly.

“I remember having to, and you can go back to my Twitter account around that time, and it’s one of the reasons I say I use Twitter because I was able to arrest the perspective, certainly from the institution of the Defence Forces and ask people, to check your sources. You need to take your information from reliable sources. Facts are our friends. And these anonymised third-party stories of something happening… “A friend told me”, it was all second hand, but it’s actually the world we’re in today,” says Mellett. 

Ireland is in the top seven per cent of the most peaceful countries in the world. But as a general trend over the last 10 years, according to the Global Peace Index, there’s been a general deterioration in peace and security. 

“If you look right now in terms of Europe, we’ve three wars, we have a full-scale hybrid war in Ukraine following the annexation of Crimea, you have multiple proxy wars in Syria still where over 600,000 people have died and over seven million people have been displaced. You have a civil war that is in stalemate in Libya. They’re all on our frontier here. And it’s not a million miles away,” says Mellett. 

This is even more of a reason why it’s so important Ireland is in the top seven per cent of most peaceful countries in the world. 

“The dividend for the state is its attractive then for FDI, for foreign direct investment. That’s why so many of the FDI powerhouses have European headquarters here in Dublin. And there’s an inextricable link between state security and economic security. While we guarantee state security to the best of our ability, we’re a stimulant for the economic security. Because if we don’t do our job, the economic security won’t happen because the FDIs won’t come here and the S&Ps won’t stay here,” says Mellett.

*****

In the background of Ireland being valued as an international peacekeeper, closer to home there are issues around how much those in the Defence Forces are valued. 

There has been a serious drop in those joining the Defence Forces and it has put some strain on the service the organisation provides. The number of people serving in the Defence Forces dropped to crisis levels of 8,500 in 2019. But the organisation is recruiting now again.

One of the main reasons for the drop in personnel in the Defence Forces is due to low wages. TD and former army ranger Cathal Berry has come out on numerous occasions to campaign against the low salary being offered in the Defence Forces. 

“The appalling rates of pay are blatantly wrong and illegal. For example they get €3 per hour for night duty and €4 per hour for weekend duties. It’s in breach of the minimum wage act,” Berry said last year. 

Mellett says he is trying to remedy the issue of pay but needs to walk a fine line while doing it.

“You can never pay them too much. But you can pay some too little. And we have had climate surveys, I’ve had town halls, I’ve had employee engagement surveys, I have exit surveys, and in many cases they point to some of our members not being paid enough. And I have advocated on that and I’ve got beaten up on it because I’m told it’s not my role to be public on this. But what I am looking forward to is the fact that the government have tasked the commission and the Defence Forces to examine the matter of an independent mechanism for pay determination.”

“I have an optimism that that arrangement will solve what has been a challenge during my watch. And it’s my job, by the way, to advocate for our soldiers, to walk that fine line between advocate and a soldier at the same time and stay within the constraints of the policy parameters set. And the policy parameters, set by government, is to have a collective arrangement in terms of public service, stability agreement. And it’s a lonely place to walk that line. But my soldiers accuse me of not doing enough sometimes. The government accuses me of doing too much. So I must be right,” says Mellett. 

On whether this fall in personnel has impacted Irish peacekeeping missions Mellett says “It hasn’t. But it hasn’t meant that it hasn’t been without a price.”

“The last year has been a very unusual year. We couldn’t recruit at the level we want to recruit because of the Covid-19 penalty in terms of doing stuff. And at the same time, we were never busier than we are with regards to the Covid penalty in terms of doing so. And meanwhile, back at the ranch, we’ve kept our missions going, our 13 missions in 12 countries. We’ve kept our ships going. We’ve kept our Air Corps going,” he adds. 

The area within the Defence Forces which is suffering most right now is the Navy, according to Mellett. 

“The maritime side in terms of our naval service which has not recovered. It’s on a flat line at present,” says Mellett. 

There are other plans in place to make joining the Navy more attractive as well such as a sea-going compensation and there is also a range of opportunities for those who want to join the Defence Forces. 

“You’re not just coming in to be a soldier. You can be an engineer in Syria. You could be a medic in the Mediterranean. You could be a chief pilot on a maritime patrol aircraft 200 miles off the coast. You could be on the bridge of a ship hosting an international business trade reception in Hong Kong, where I have been in the past. You could be in a challenging mission like Mali,” says Mellett.

Women in the Defence Forces

Mellett made history by being the first former naval officer to become chief of staff, as his 28 predecessors had military backgrounds. Yet, he says that history could be made again as he believes there are women currently in the Defence Forces who could take the role in the next 10 years.

“Our senior army officer at the moment is the rank of Brigadier General Maureen O’Brien. She’s just back from Syria where she served for most of the period actually, as the de facto force commander. So, she was doing the job of a major general, albeit in a brigadier general’s rank, but it just was happenstance because her role was deputy force commander, but he wasn’t there for most of the period. So, she stepped up and she did a remarkable job.”

“If you had predominantly male group think, you get predominantly male size of brains looking at problems. Women look at problems in a different way. And it’s a biological reality and the evidence is overwhelming in particular in the commercial world, in C suite, everywhere. It’s this drive towards gender equality and empowerment, it’s meaning that you will get a better bottom line if you get that diversity at your senior leadership, at your middle management and at your junior leadership, the organisation becomes more socially cohesive.”

And Maureen is, she’s not the biggest woman in the world. And it was just a remarkable way in which to see the authority that she displayed in that mission, which is coming out of the Syrian proxy war, as I mentioned. She played with such a steel hand and yet, with the empathy to actually keep all the conflicting constituents in the ruck, and she just came back,” says Mellett. 

It was announced this week O’Brien will become the first female army general to be appointed to a senior post at the United Nations headquarters in New York. She will take up a new post as the deputy military advisor to the UN Secretary-General.

“Maureen is due to retire soon. And from that point, she’s not available to me to have at the C Suite here. She’s retiring on age grounds. And I don’t have the power to do anything about that. So, there’s a challenge. So, I look at the next two females we have, senior females we have in the cavalry corps. Jayne Lawlor, who is currently in the Balkans, she’s in Sarajevo.”

“And our senior commander in the Navy is Roberta O’Brien. So, I have to look at it in terms of profile. Personally, I don’t know what age they are, but I think in 10 year’ time if they’re still serving… And that’s for a decision beyond me, at that stage I’ll probably be driving my zimmer frame around somewhere,” says Mellett. 

*****

Retaining women in the forces is especially difficult states Mellett. He and his team have been working on ways to make the Forces more attractive to join.

“To be frank, one thing talked about was on the fitness test. It is a big differentiator for women more than men. And the question I posed, and I’m being quite upfront on this is, was could we look at removing the fitness test altogether for the Defence Forces? Not with a view to say we’re going to lower our fitness standards. But I suppose the consideration I’ve asked is what if we asked people to become fit within the first six weeks of service and we have a physical training instructor assigned to bring them to that fitness level and we give six weeks or maybe two months. I don’t know what it would look like. So, people have different attitudes to fitness today.”

“And, if there’s a means whereby I can open the pipe to get more people to come across the threshold, and it means then taking that penalty to say, ok, we’ll bring people in on license or on probation on the basis that you must get to a level of fitness and an understanding that if they don’t get to that level of fitness, then they won’t be retained,” says Mellett. 

Making it easier on family life is also an area the Defence Forces are looking at to make them more accessible to women. 

“The other ways then is service in the military is quite challenging from a family point of view. And there are different demands on parents, and the demands on a mother who’s nurturing young children are different to a man who is nurturing young children. But from the point of view of what if we have family-friendly rotations overseas? Whereby instead of being separated for six months, that you’re separated for three months? And we brought that in for our overseas appointments.,” says Mellett

Recruiting and retaining more women “is not about political correctness and it’s not about access to 50 per cent of the population”, says Mellett. He believes having a diverse group of people around you is the only way to look at the bigger picture of different scenarios.

“This is about capability. If you had predominantly male group think, you get predominantly male size of brains looking at problems. Women look at problems in a different way. And it’s a biological reality and the evidence is overwhelming in particular in the commercial world, in C suite, everywhere. It’s this drive towards gender equality and empowerment, it’s meaning that you will get a better bottom line if you get that diversity at your senior leadership, at your middle management and at your junior leadership, the organisation becomes more socially cohesive.”

“I had the privilege to serve in Afghanistan, but one of the saddest parts of that was looking at the attitude towards women in Afghanistan. And I remember once a mukhtar coming in to see me, and he gave me his curriculum vitae of his four children, he had two boys and two girls, and the eldest son was an engineer and the other son was training to be a doctor and his two daughters, and I remember this to this day, one was 27 and one was 21. And in bold writing was uneducated. And that was a badge of honour for him. And that’s the challenge we’re up against,” says Mellett. 

This is not a problem in the Defence Forces alone, states Mellett who says that as a society we need to tackle this issue. 

“I was talking to Martin Shanahan, the CEO of the IDA just the other day and it’s still coming through when you look at the FDIs coming into the country. Google and Facebook and all the rest, all looking tech-heavy. They’re looking for graduates of the science, technology and the maths side. But the ratio of women going forward for those careers is not as high as it could be. And so it’s a societal issue, not just a military issue,” says Mellett. 

Leadership in a time of Covid-19

With the personnel he had at his disposal, Mellett had one of the biggest challenges to face in his entire career with Covid-19.

Mellett was at a dinner on a Saturday night in a restaurant on Washington Street in Cork when he got a text from a colleague, who presented him with some numbers concerning Covid-19. 

“Now like everybody else in the few days leading up to that, I had seen those video clips of people falling down in Wuhan and one of them had come from a HSE colleague who was very senior. And I knew he wasn’t sending it to me for fun. And he didn’t even give an explanation or anything. But it just looked really worrying,” says Mellett.

The planning to tackle this virus if it came to Ireland began in January and Mellett reinforced it by formalising the planning group in February. At an early stage a National Security Committee meeting was convened. 

“I was at that. I had made a decision already at that stage to stand up a joint task force. And a joint task force is where you put together a command structure to actually command elements of the Army, the Navy and the Air Corps. And I had separated out from our core business because my concern was that this could be so big that if we were trying to mix it in with our core business, our core business would start falling down or fall flat on its face. And I just needed this capacity to put it away separate from what we were doing, because I wasn’t expecting it to hit us with a shock, but I was at the same time trying to plan for the resilience required to be there at the end,” says Mellett.

“And what I mean by that is, a country’s Defence Forces cannot consider failure in the context of a pandemic like Covid-19 or a terrorist event or any other event. At the end of the day, the last institution standing is your military, they’re your guarantor of sovereignty. I often say, we’re the bedrock of our sovereignty and the framework for the institutions of civil society where people are free, the institutions of state function and the vulnerable are protected and the institutions of state functioning was my concern, that if this mortality rate in the pandemic was as high as it might be, institutions might start falling down,” he adds. 

This idea of a joint task force actually came from the Defence Forces experience in dealing with Ebola in West Africa where they established a similar joint task force. 

“I knew what a joint task force looked like. So marrying those two together and all our staffers and planners putting it together and standing this up, it became a workhorse and we called it Operation Fortitude because that’s what it was about, strength. I started working with Paul Reid, I got to know Paul Reid and I think Paul Reid said at that time that I walked up him and said, whatever you need Paul, we’ll make it available to you and we did just that. It’s been almost a roller coaster since. And the demands keep on coming in.”

“I don’t know, sometimes I think Paul Reid thinks we’re a bottomless pocket with loads of resources, but we’re not, we actually still have challenges in terms of resources. But all along the journey, the first measures and some of them were quite decisive in terms of pulling in ships. And we put a ship into Dublin, a ship into Galway and a ship into Cork. The ship in Cork was more logistics but Dublin and Galway were pop up or pop in, testing centres,” says Mellett. 

A change in culture 

Changing culture was a priority for Mellett during his time as Chief of Staff. He says he is trying to improve is the culture within the forces on coming forward about abuse, especially when it comes to sexual abuse, harassment and bullying.

“We’ve had three independent monitoring periods under Eileen Doyle, up to 2015/2016. And I’ve asked the minister to establish a follow-on platform similar to that. That’s my transparency. I am not for a moment tolerating any deviation from norms and principles. We have our code of practice. We have our values,” says Mellett.

“Matters with regards to sexual harassment and bullying in the first instance are matters for the gardai. Even if it was a case whereby we have to actually deal with sexual assault, that has to go straight across to the gardai. They’re the competent authority,” he adds.

Mellett says that he himself is instilling a zero tolerance policy within the forces with any circumstances of sexual harassment and bullying. 

“I remember before when I was chief of the Navy, dealing with an issue whereby there was an alleged assault. And on the particular ship was a female captain and it was a seaman that allegedly assaulted a female sailor on board. And the matter wasn’t brought to justice. It wasn’t investigated because the alleged victim didn’t want to make a complaint. And I remember talking to the ship’s captain and she said, “No, she doesn’t want to make a complaint.”  And I said, well, I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough. Actually, there was a witness to the alleged assault. You have to investigate this. And if the victim doesn’t want to make a statement and so be it, but you can’t pretend that what somebody saw didn’t happen. And that’s the culture I institutionalised now,” says Mellett.

Relationship with government

There is a lot being done to try and improve the conditions of joining the Defence Force, but is it possible to do this when there is no cabinet minister with defence as their only portfolio?

“What is important is that we have a minister who advocates for defence, and that’s what Minister Coveney does. And I suppose the other dividend on that is Minister Coveney is a senior minister in government. So, therefore, he can advocate at a level with authority. And there is also a congruence, although this is slightly political, there is a congruence between the defence portfolio and foreign affairs portfolio. And if you look at it in the areas of sovereignty and the areas of our peace support operations, the 13 missions in 12 countries where we have 613 people at the moment, there’s a huge foreign affairs dimension to that in the context of that service,” says Mellett. 

“I think it has been a highlight, and in the context of my service, as being able to address and shift cultural pieces within the defence forces in a direction which when I started six years or eight years ago, seemed insurmountable.”

Mark Mellett

Mellett describes Coveney as a friend who he knew long before he took up the role as Chief of Staff. But there was speculation that the two may butt heads from time to time over matters to do with the defence forces, especially when minister Coveney shot down Mellett’s suggestion of rehiring former officers during the pandemic. 

“To be honest, it’s a storm in a teacup. If you look at the numbers, we did recommission and we did re-enlist and the spirit of the reenlistment and the recommissioning was to fill priority gaps within the Defence Forces. What I’ll say is, my job is to give advice. At the end of the day, I give advice and it’s a matter for the government and for the minister to accept advice or to have another perspective.”

“And that’s the reality. As Clausewitz said, ‘there can be no other way except to subordinate the military to the political.’ And there’s no butting heads about it. It’s a professional relationship, but I am the subordinate. It’s the same in every democracy that the military serves the government. And government have different priorities at different times. So, I have really huge respect for Minister Coveney. He has a huge level of ambition for the Defence Forces,” says Mellett. 

What’s next?

With that many years service, there must be a great number of highlights but for Mellett, but it was being part of a culture change that was the best part of the job for him.

“I think it has been a highlight, and in the context of my service, as being able to address and shift cultural pieces within the defence forces in a direction which when I started six years or eight years ago, seemed insurmountable.”

“I remember one of my predecessors saying to me, there are no gays in the Defence Forces. And I couldn’t believe that. Like there were always gays in the Defence Forces. Of course,” says Mellett.

And with five months left in his service with the Defence Forces, what was next for Mark Mellett?

“I’m looking at a few opportunities. I’m an academic. I’m an adjunct professor in UCC. So, Ursula Kilkelly who runs the faculty, who runs the School of Business and Law, and I hope I may be able to do some more work with her pro-bono. And I’m looking at perhaps an opportunity on the NGO side. The other side is non-executive director potential,” he says.