General Secretary of PDFORRA Gerard Guinan said: 'The message being sent out is that running services into the ground is the only manner by which you will receive funding. File picture: Paul Mealey
Concerns have been raised that further roles within the Defence Forces are being outsourced at a cost to the taxpayer with claims that the money would be better spent retaining personnel.
The exodus of highly skilled personnel for better pay and conditions in the private sector has significantly increased the cost of paying private contractors to fill the gaps.
It first started a number of years ago with the outsourcing of Air Corps maintenance to an Italian company and escalated more recently with a €14.3m contract to a Finnish company for maintaining navy ships. Only one ship is currently on patrol.
Now it has emerged that a €1.6m contract has been awarded to employ four instructors to the Defence Forces’ Ordinance School, much to the dismay of PDForra the representative association for enlisted personnel. Again, this is due to specialists exiting the military.
“We sincerely believe that the money could have been better spent by retaining personnel. Presently PDForra is preparing for adjudication for Ordnance Artificers (engineers) where the total value of the claim to increase the salary of members of the Ordnance Corp is just short of €180,000 per year for approximately 100 personnel.
"Therefore, you can see that the value of the contract for one year for four instructors would pay for eight to nine years for all the artificers in service,” PDForra general secretary Gerard Guinan said.