Senator Gerard Craughwell- speech from 12 Jul 2022
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Transcript
Thank you very much. Leader, I rise this morning. A happy man for once with respect to the Defence Forces. A great piece of work done by the Department in bringing forward the changes that are coming. A great day for the Reserve Defence Forces, a great day for private soldiers who will see substantial increases in their income and it gives great hope for the future. There always has to be a downside and with such a large project and the negotiations that will have led to this, there are one or two areas that need further, I suppose, a further look at. One of them is to reverse the FEMPE cut that took place with respect to Special Instructors Allowance for Commissioned Officers. Commissioned Officers have not fared well in anything that has happened in the Defence Forces in recent times. And the other one is the Military Service Allowance. I spoke about this last week. We are in a situation now where a Corporal can actually have a greater income than a Lieutenant when the Lieutenant is in fact his supervisor and writes his annual appraisals and things like that. So the equalisation of Military Service Allowance is something that we will work for in the future. But in fairness to Minister Coveney, he has delivered. I have been hard enough on him down through the years, so I have, and his predecessors. But he has delivered on this one. I see really good times ahead as we start to see the investment that is promised into the infrastructure, into the people. And, you know, it's a good day. So I don't want to put a damper on it, but if you are talking to the Minister, I compliment him fully. But maybe at some stage before the next budget, we might get a chance to sit down and look at Military Service Allowance for Officers and the Special Instructors Allowance for Officers. It was returned to the men, but not to the officers. And similarly, there's the Seagon Allowance that we need to have a look at. They're all FEMPE issues and should have been reversed with FEMPE. So I think all in all a good day. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.