Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Hallelujah for that. I am greatly relieved. The allowance that received most publicity was for underwear and night attire for female personnel. Drilling into the detail, one sees that abolishing this outrageous payment for 377 recipients would yield just under €13,000. This best reflects how a level of sensationalism can take hold. It is useful to have this information before us.

Another dilemma presents. I ask the delegates to follow my logic. It makes no more sense to pay a military service allowance to military people than it does to pay pilots an allowance for flying. That is what they do. The presentation of these allowances is important. Some of the delegates mentioned morale within the ranks. It is important that those serving in a military with military discipline and who are exempted from basic things that other people take for granted, be it representation in ICTU, coverage by health and safety legislation, etc., are protected by the system that they serve. I mean this in the most positive of ways.

I agree with other members, in that the allowances' names are misleading in the most benign way. They also damage the reputation of the Defence Forces. Mr. Howard has explained the history of the situation and I accept that it was a hodge-podge arrangement put together with the best of intentions. However, I hope that it is abundantly clear that this is not a situation that can continue. It cannot be logically explained. Archaic allowances need to be stripped away and people must be paid properly. For those following this part of our examination of allowances, the main revelation will be how poorly paid privates are, for example. It is scandalous. In any other sector, their pay would be viewed as slave wages. Not only is it unacceptable, but it is also unwise of the State to pay people so poorly for the evident reasons, for example the nature of their tasks, our reliance on them for security and how the security of the State hinges on the quality of service at every level.

Those levels of pay cannot be stood over. The situation of supplementing deplorably low basic pay levels with the military service allowance is unacceptable. I do not accept either the argument of the law of unintended consequences in terms of people claiming that because an engineer in the Army is getting X he or she should get the same. It is self evident why the Defence Forces, in this sector in particular, are an exceptional case. We have no difficulty making the exception in respect of some of the other areas I mentioned. It is clear that the average worker in the public or Civil Service is not on call 24/7, except those of us involved in politics.