In January 2021, Minister for Defence Simon Coveney announced a new Sea-Going Service Commitment Scheme to ensure enough personnel would commit to sea patrols with a taxable loyalty bonus of €10,000. Picture: Denis Minihane
Military representative associations have welcomed the news that additional members of the Naval Service will be eligible for a loyalty bonus for committing to sea patrols.
However, they say this alone will not be enough to stem the tide of people leaving the force.
In January 2021, Minister for Defence Simon Coveney announced a new Sea-Going Service Commitment Scheme (SSCS) to ensure enough personnel would commit to sea patrols with a taxable loyalty bonus of €10,000 each over a two-year period to be paid in four six-monthly tranches.
However, at the time only those who had service experience of three years or more could apply for the bonus. This ruled out a large cohort of staff and in the end, only around 80 personnel signed up for it.
Both PDForrra, representing enlisted personnel, and RACO, representing officers, warned the scheme wouldn’t work because of the eligibility criteria and created resentment because people who were onboard ships and getting no bonus were doing the same amount of work as those who did.
Mr Coveney has now announced an amendment to the scheme which will allow those with a minimum of one year’s service to apply for the SSCS loyalty bonus.
Challenges of staff retention
Mr Coveney has acknowledged that the retention of experienced officers and enlisted personnel in the Naval Service has been a significant challenge and said a process to allow for detailed consideration of the Naval Service recommendations in the Report of the Commission on the Defence Forces has commenced.
PDForra president Mark Keane said his association welcomed the expansion of the SSCS, but said “this has to be the start of a bigger process” to address shortages of personnel in the Naval Service.
He said the Report of the Commission on the Defence Forces had recommended that all sea-going allowances should be rolled into one and that the Naval Service get a lot less per day for sea patrol duties than Customs or Fishery Protection Officers.
“We need to engage with the minister and the Department of Defence on this and we need to look at further retention measures,” Mr Keane said.
It’s a start but people on the ground feel it's not enough to compensate for the time they spend away from home, the excessive hours worked, and the hardship associated with a life at sea.
RACO also believes that all sea-going allowances should be lumped together.
“RACO has been asking Mr Coveney and the Department of Defence for simple improvements to this complex and divisive (SSCS) scheme since its launch in January 2021.
“While this is a positive small step, the only thing that will retain highly qualified, experienced and hard-working Naval Service personnel is a fair rate of patrol duty allowance,” a RACO spokesman said.