Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will answer Deputy Stanton's questions first. I know he is familiar with the Naval Service and the pressures it is under. I hope that the scheme we launched last week is an indication to people working in the Naval Service that the Government is taking this issue seriously. It took a number of months to get this scheme agreed with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, for understandable reasons. Effectively, what it does is that if a person has been in the Naval Service for more than three years, he or she can commit to this scheme to go to sea for two of the next four years and get €5,000 for each of those years that he or she follows through on that commitment, as long as 120 days are spent at sea. We would expect that in their seagoing year, people would spend about 165 days at sea. There is more than enough flexibility there. We have also increased the seagoing tax credit from €1,270 per year to €1,500 per year.

Essentially, that is after-tax cash. If one rolls that up, it is actually a combination of the two, which is quite a strong incentive to go to sea.

We built on a successful Air Corps service retention scheme, which was designed slightly differently but on a similar principle, and applied that to a commitment to go to sea, which is a retention scheme also because people sign up for the next few years. That gives us a lot more certainty in the context of retention. Unfortunately, when people are headhunted and offered jobs that may pay higher, and they are also faced with the lifestyle choices that come with choosing to go to sea. I continue to maintain that we needed to reflect that challenge in the context of the financial response we had to put in place. This is not a pay or salary increase, it is a retention scheme that is a financial incentive to being willing to go to sea, and to commit to doing that for the years ahead. Certainly, the response so far has been quite strong.

The third element as part of that package is direct entry into the Naval Service where we will recruit and target certain skill sets, ironically from the private sector. Hopefully, the shoe will be on the other foot for a change and we will be able to introduce those people in at a higher rank than they otherwise would have come in at, to make it more attractive for them. Specialist engineers, radar operators or chefs, for example, may be among a range of specialists available in the private and commercial shipping sector that we could target to bring into the Naval Service. Perhaps more importantly, in the context of re-enlistment, it may also bring such specialists back in if they had left. There is a lot happening to try to address the retention and recruitment challenges we face. It is important to say that the interventions in the Air Corps last year by the then Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, have been very successful. I am aware that there is not a lot of headhunting for pilots at the moment given the state of the aviation industry this year, but even with all of that we have seen a lot of pilots come back in, which is great.

I want to do a lot of work on the Reserve. Deputy Berry has raised this with me previously, as have other Members. We will look at how we can expand the role of the Reserve and how we can complement the expertise within the Permanent Defence Force with potentially additional roles for the Reserve. We will ask the commission to look at this in detail. We are looking at whether we can introduce an amendment to the defence legislation coming through the Houses currently, to expand and give a legal footing to be able to do more with and for the Reserve and to make it a more exciting option. Reserve numbers are not where they should be and we need to send a very clear signal to the effect that we have a single Defence Forces policy where the Reserve works in tandem with, and complementary to, the Permanent Defence Force, at home and potentially abroad too, and particularly where there are specific skill sets the Reserve could provide that may be in short supply in the Permanent Defence Force at different times. That also applies in respect of the Naval Service. We are looking at those issues and I look forward to progressing them through the commission and through conversations with reservists.

On Deputy Cowen's point, the retention of the money has been facilitated by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for a number of years. It is not the first year we have done this. There have been accusations that because the strength is not what it should be, we are handing back all this money each year. That is not the case. We are the only Department where there is a recognition from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform that unspent money on salaries is because we are below strength - on a temporary basis I hope - and they allow the Department of Defence to reallocate that money into other areas of expenditure that are needed. We are using that at the moment to spend significantly more money on capital expenditure than suggested in the Estimates. To be perfectly honest, it is happening because there is a problem and we need to fix that problem and get it addressed in future capital Estimates. It is not a satisfactory situation that we have 1,000 fewer people in the Defence Forces than we should have. This is, I hope, a temporary issue while we address the retention issues.

I was asked for some detail on recruitment and I shall give the committee a sense of that. The Government has acknowledged that there are particular challenges in the Defence Forces and this is why there is a commitment in the programme for Government to examine recruitment and retention issues as part of the commission on the future of the Defence Forces. There is also a proposal to establish an independent pay review body when the commission has completed its work. A high-level implementation plan, strengthening our defence forces, is also being progressed. Pay measures as recommended by the Public Service Pay Commission have been delivered. Other projects to enhance recruitment and retention are being delivered and others will feed into the negotiations over the next round of discussions on pay . There will be an opportunity to fully consider pay matters in the Defence Forces as part of the next pay agreement and within the commission on the future of the Defence Forces. Military authorities advise that 340 personnel were inducted in 2020 to the end of September and further inductions are planned during the remainder of the years. The Defence Forces capacity to induct and train recruits was severely impacted upon by Covid-19 earlier in the year. I suspect that there are still some limitations even now. In conjunction with traditional recruitment, a range of alternative recruitment approaches are being utilised, for example, the campaign to re-enlist and recommission former members and to have a direct entry recruitment process, which I referred to earlier. I shall give a sense of previous years' numbers: in 2016 there were 690 people recruited across all ranks; in 2017 it was 7,521; in 2018 it was 627; in 2019 it was 615; and to date in 2020 it is 340. This, however, is an extraordinary year. We are talking about some 600 to 700 people per year. We need to try to increase this if we can. Some of the points I referred to earlier will help us to do that.

The Chairman asked about the regeneration of the Curragh. When I was Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, we worked with the Department of Defence on some broad thinking around the regeneration of the Curragh as a whole. It is not just about the barracks. The Curragh is quite unique in its ecosystem and the space and opportunity there. We can do a lot more through an ambitious programme of investment through the Department. We should also be working with Kildare County Council and other Departments that have a more broad interest in the development of the Curragh as a whole. I am aware that the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, and other Members, including members of this committee, have advocated for that. We are certainly very much open to it.

With regard to the role of the Defence Forces in the continuing fight against Covid-19, we are available - when I say "we" I am talking about the defence infrastructure of the State - to do more. Do not underestimate how much work the Defence Forces have already done in response to Covid-19: working with the HSE, publicly and behind the scenes; as support in areas of transportation and contact tracing and testing; setting up testing capacity on quay sides using Naval Service vessels; and also in operating some of the existing test centres. The Defence Forces will remain at the disposal of the State to work with An Garda Síochána, with the HSE and with national efforts generally.

Obviously, in the past few days, we have seen problems in terms of capacity around contact tracing. They are problems we need to address quickly and I know the HSE is doing that, but the Defence Forces are there to help. We have shown that, at very short notice, the Defence Forces can essentially design structures to complement what other arms of the State are doing. We will continue to be available to do that as we move through the second wave.