Carol Nolan Challenges Defence Forces Pay and Retention Crisis

Minister, I wish to ask you if you are aware of the findings of a survey carried out by RACO which show that there are serious issues around pay and conditions and that highly trained personnel continue to leave the Defence Forces. Now we do know that this has been an ongoing issue and indeed it's come up here a number of times from parties and TDs across the House. So it is a serious issue and also, you know, it has also been highlighted that, you know, highly qualified people such as officers, one in three officers, have actually stated that they would not recommend the Defence Forces as a career to young people and that is very, very concerning. But when you look at many people joining the Defence Forces, many of them would have had their parents in the Defence Forces previously. So there are also a lot of people absolutely recommending a career in the Defence Forces and I think we need to focus on ensuring that we have balance. The survey to which the Deputy refers highlighted that pay in the private sector was one of a number of reasons why some personnel leave the Defence Forces. There are, however, many reasons why individuals may leave the Defence Forces, ranging from individual personal circumstances, other career opportunities, having fulfilled their contracts or retirement and age grounds. A career in the Defence Forces offers personnel significant opportunities, including education and training opportunities. Whilst pay has been highlighted, of course, as an issue, there has been significant progress in recent years. The Defence Forces have received pay increases in line with the Public Service Stability Agreement, the most recent of which was a 2% increase on annualised salaries from the 1st of October last year. The restoration of a 5% cut in allowances imposed under the financial emergency on the public interest legislation was also restored from the 1st of October last year. In addition to the general round of pay increases awarded to public servants, members of the Department of Defence Forces have also benefited from the implementation of increases in Defence Force Allowances as recommended by the Public Service Pay Commission. These include a 10% increase in military service allowance, the restoration of a 10% cut applied to a number of Defence Force Allowances under the Haddington Road Pay Agreement, the restoration of premium rates for weekend security duty allowances, and the restoration of a service commitment scheme for pilots. The introduction of a new seagoing service commitment scheme for the naval service personnel came into effect from the 1st of January 2021, and is aimed at retaining highly trained and experienced personnel and incentivising seagoing duties. A seagoing naval personnel tax credit of €1,270 was applied in the 2020 tax year for members of the naval service who served 80 days or more at sea, on board a vessel in 2019. This tax credit has been extended for a further year and has been increased to €1,500 for the 2021 tax year. So, the point I am making, Deputy, is, yes, we have pay and allowance issues, but we are trying to improve income and allowances across the Defence Forces all the time. I have just given you many examples of that. Minister, we know clearly that there is a need for significant improvement, and the findings of the survey carried out by RACO show us that, and you have called out some of those issues. But the fact of the matter is that it is concerning that the Defence Force numbers are now at 8,500, which is an all-time low. And, you know, as reported by Sean O'Riordan, the RACO survey found that almost two-thirds of respondents said that they left for better pay in the private sector. And doesn't that suggest the need for improvement quickly in order to recruit people in and keep them there? And more than half experienced a better work-life balance as a result of leaving to work in the private sector. It also reported that opinions on career management and organisational leadership were generally negative. And again, that is another issue that needs to be addressed if we are to ensure that the numbers in the Defence Forces are increased and that we have retention. As I understand it from the report by Mr O'Riordan, the latest survey by RACO mirrors the findings in a 2017 survey that also showed poor pay, lack of expertise caused by an exodus of highly trained personnel, exhaustion as a result of the double and treble jobbing to fill gaps, and inadequate barrack accommodation. So, all of these are serious issues, and they are causing, I think, a lot of problems, and they are causing the sector to be quite dysfunctional. Yeah, Deputy, there are issues, but, you know, if people are leaving the Defence Forces because they are targeted by the private sector, who want to offer them more money, then that is a choice that people will make. And we can't chase the private sector in terms of pay levels all the time. There are many highly qualified, talented people in the Defence Forces that get, essentially, job offers to leave the Defence Forces because of the skill set that they have. And we have to respect those decisions. There are people leaving other parts of the public sector as well, in the same way. We face turnover. The challenge we face at the moment is that our starting point is significantly below where it should be. And we haven't been recruiting at the same pace as we've been seeing turnover or people leaving in the Defence Forces. We are, of course, looking at that. The recent pay agreement also results in pay increases and a number of other issues as well that are positive for the Defence Forces. We have a Future of the Defence Forces Commission that will report before the end of the year. And they've also been asked to look at pay structures and allowances. And we've committed in the programme for Government to set up a specific pay body for the Defence Forces to recognise the uniqueness of service in the Defence Forces. So we are doing a lot in this space, Deputy, to address the genuine problems that are there. Minister, there are personnel who served in the Defence Forces and enjoyed their time there. But the fact of the matter is that many of these personnel felt that they actually had no choice but to leave to work in the private sector, where they could earn a decent living to support their families. So that is the crux of the situation here. And as Conor King's General Secretary of RACO has pointed out, 2020 was the year the Defence Forces recruitment and retention crisis should have been resolved. The conditions were perfect coming into the new year. A healthy economy, a bespoke high-level implementation plan aptly titled Strengthening Our Defence Forces, endorsed by Government, that was going to implement real change in the Defence Organisation and make the Defence Forces once again an employer of choice. But then COVID struck. What we need now, however, is firm commitments. And we need to maintain whatever momentum is there in terms of having this matter addressed once and for all, so that all TDs of different parties and none do not have to keep raising this issue. And so that families of Defence Force members are not subjected to hardship and trying to pay bills and pay mortgages on poor pay. And that is the reality here, Minister. The final reply. Deputy, I accept that there is a recruitment and retention issue in the Defence Forces. We are doing a lot to address that. We have had some successes, particularly in the Air Corps, in relation to bringing pilots back in, which wasn't just a COVID dividend, if you like, in terms of pilots returning to the Air Corps. It was also because of a scheme that we put in place to do that. We are setting about addressing recruitment and retention issues in the Naval Service as well, and indeed in the Army. We are inviting back and bringing back people who have left the Defence Forces who want to return, both at an officer level and at a non-officer level. So there is a lot happening. And the Defence organisations, our representative organisations, know that because we have spoken to them about it. But this isn't going to happen overnight. And I think we need to be realistic that recruitment does take some time. And the ask of RACO in particular, in terms of pay, was to set up a separate pay body. It is exactly what we are doing. And everyone in this House should know that the way in which public sector pay negotiations happen is that it is a collective negotiation for everybody. There hasn't been the capacity to single out one organisation and look at them separately for pay, which is what everybody seems to suggest every time we talk about this issue in this House. So let's be realistic and let's be ambitious at the same time and look at structures that can address the retention issues in the Defence Forces, which I think is what we are trying to do.