Mr. Derek Priestley:

The important point about the working time directive is its health and safety focus. The Defence Forces are currently exempted from the provisions under section 3 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997. It is a blanket exemption. Various legal cases both at home and in Europe have resulted in a widespread recognition that something must be done in regard to the Organisation of Working Time Act, after which the provisions set out in the directive will then have to be reincorporated into Irish law. As to what is required, it is about providing rest periods for personnel who currently have a 24-7 liability, as we outlined. It is about being able to say in a working week how many hours personnel will work. We need to be able to define the working day, the working week and the working month for Defence Forces members. The provision in the Act that workers must have 11 hours off in a day does not necessarily sit well with military operations, so we are into the realm of exemptions and derogations and the question of what that means for Defence Forces personnel. Since 2014 or thereabouts, we have been calling for some type of examination of the issue, but any progress has been slow in coming. There is a huge body of work involved. Garda Síochána representatives took five years to come up with an agreement for their members. It is only recently that we have had serious discussions with the Department of Defence and military management as to how we might implement the directive within the Defence Forces. It is an issue that is crying out to be tackled if we are to address all the difficulties we are facing in regard to health and safety, retention and so on.

We cannot delay any longer. In response to the surveys that were conducted, 16% of Defence Forces members said they were stressed. That cannot be a healthy situation. We have ordnance officers who are doing seven 24-hour duties in a row. They commence on a Friday at 11.30 a.m. and finish the following Friday at 11.30 p.m. It is only quite a recent thing that they are not expected to come back to work on the Monday. After meeting great resistance, we managed to push it back to Wednesday. What kind of work-life balance can anybody have in those circumstances? These are highly skilled and trained personnel who took a long time to develop their skills and are recognised internationally as world leaders in their trade. Yet we wonder why they are running out the door. I could give a long list of the jobs for which experienced ordnance officers have left the Defence Forces, but what is the point? The only point that matters is they left, although the removal of fixed-period promotions, to which the Senator referred, certainly was a catalyst for many of them. I spoke not long ago to a man who had left for a large organisation where he was still required to do 24-hour shifts but could not believe the amount of time he got off after doing those stints. He was at a loss as to what to do with the time off he had. One cannot blame people for leaving in that situation.

The review of the working time legislation is a significant body of work which has been delayed for far too long. We have been trying to progress it and it is time now for it to be done. Members who wish to be helpful should be mindful of the need for that legislative work.