THE Defence Forces splashed €738,000 on a bumper recruitment push last year — yet attracted 20 per cent fewer applications than 2020.
And the crisis crippling Ireland’s Army, Navy and Air Corps shows no signs of easing after just 133 soldiers signed up in 2022 despite a €334,000 ad campaign, which included social media promos.
The Defence Forces have struggled with a recruitment and retention crisis for years with new figures obtained from The Irish Sun revealing the problem.
In 2020, the Defence Forces splashed €500,211 on an extensive campaign to sign people up, including more than €200,000 on online ad.
But only 533 of 12,240 applicants became soldiers.
Last year, authorities upped the ante with an increased spend of €738,475 — with €300,000 on online ads including on TikTok, Spotify, Snapchat and Instagram.
However, they only attracted 9,651 applications — a drop of more than 20 per cent on the previous year.
Some 576 new recruits joined last year resulting in an average of €1,282 spent in advertising per recruit.
The figures for the first half of 2022 are equally as stark with just 133 new recruits signed up so far.
The Defence Forces have a particular problem attracting women, with only eight per cent of recruits since 2019 being female.
Mark Keane, the PDFORRA president, said that the Defence Forces needed to adapt and consider more family friendly measures to attract more recruits.
The Defence Forces rep said: “If you want to have a family and combine that with a career the Defence Forces is not seen as lending itself towards that.
“Consideration of more options for being able to work some roles for home should also be thought about.
“We still have a system that we inherited many years ago and we haven’t moved with the way people are working now. If you look at remote working that is being mooted in the public sector and private sector.
“Things like that we have to move with the work practices and mirror that.”
