Mr. Derek Priestley:

I will finish on Senator Craughwell's question on fixed period promotion. He specifically mentioned medical officers. It is important to take a few seconds to understand the importance of medical officers in the Defence Forces in respect of the application of force, travelling overseas, training and the use of lethal force. Having medical officers is not simply about medical care. It is about trust and asking people to put themselves in danger. These people need to be looked after. The establishment figure for medical officers in the Defence Forces is 24 or 25. That may sound like a lot for an organisation that is meant to have 9,500 people but not when we consider that we currently have three medical officers deployed at any one time. Effectively we have three forming up, three overseas and three coming back. We need a panel of nine for overseas commitments alone. That is before we do annual medical examinations or any medical treatment that might go on within the Defence Forces.

We are all aware of the situation internationally and nationally with the shortage of doctors. Back in 2012 it was decided in agreement with the association - we have the conciliation council report - to give a boost to newly recruited doctors after three years. We would promote them from captain to commandant after three years with what we call fixed period promotion. One might say that is a great benefit and it does not exist anywhere else in the public sector, but the reality is that all we were doing was reflecting the payscales available in the HSE or the wider private sector for doctors. In 2012 the number one item on the risk register at the time was the availability, recruitment and retention of medical officers in the Defence Forces. The bringing in of this provision whereby we promote doctors after three years to the rank of commandant was good work.

In 2015 the fixed period promotion for all special service officers in the Defence Forces was removed only for it to come back, thankfully, in 2019. The then Minister of State at the Department of Defence, Deputy Kehoe, looked at the wider problem and decided that special service officers would continue to benefit from fixed period promotion.

Last February, we had a doctor who had been recruited in 2018 and who thought he would had fixed period promotion after three years to commandant. He was denied his promotion and was told it was not going to happen. This was news to us because we had a conciliation council report providing for agreement with the Department that is should happen after three years. This officer is in the vanguard and the four or five officers who were recruited after him are all now reconsidering their service in the Defence Forces.

If we have an establishment of 22, we probably have 15 on our books. To lose four or five medical officers at this stage would be a disaster. I cannot understand an attitude that would deny fixed period promotion when the logic was all set out in 2012 and agreed with the association. The impact of this, as I said at the start, is that without medical officers in the Defence Forces we cannot deploy overseas or train or fire any of the larger weapons. We cannot keep our people physically and medically fit to do the job that they are meant to do. It is absolutely a force multiplier and it delivers capability across the Defence Forces. The policy that is being implemented is going to have a detrimental effect.