Other pay areas for Naval Service members have increased in recent years. Mr Keane welcomed these but said “if we truly wish to keep the ship afloat allowances that incentivise service in the navy must be maintained and improved upon”.
Mr Keane said if the Defence Forces “can’t get people to come to Cork and join the navy from across the country it will all be wasted effort”.
Issues of pay and conditions and their impact on recruitment and retention dominated the conference in Trim, Co Meath. “The security of this State cannot be sacrificed as a cost-saving measure,” one delegate told the conference. “No more do the young people of Ireland believe the Defence Forces can sustain the basic hierarchy of human needs.”
PDForra general secretary Ger Guinan said the Department of Defence has failed to address the issue of allowances across the military “which lag far behind our counterparts in other areas of the public service when overtime is calculated”. This is having a negative impact on morale across the organisation.
He said the failure to implement the EU Working Time directive “in a fair manner” has also had consequences, “namely the dysfunctional turnover rates and inability to recruit personnel in sufficient numbers”. He said the Government needed to “grasp the nettle” and ask itself “is it fair to pay personnel €60 before tax for an additional 16 hours overtime work?”