Mr. Conor King:

Ba mhaith linn ár mbuíochas a ghabháil leis an gcoiste as ucht an chuiridh labhairt anseo inniu. We are privileged to be afforded the opportunity to join the committee today to give the perspective of the officers of Óglaigh na hÉireann on the current issues affecting our members and the Defence Forces. I am joined by Commandant Martin Ryan, RACO president, Lieutenant Commander Cian O'Mearáin from our Naval Service committee, Commandant Amy Colclough from 2 Brigade and Captain Jamie Bray, representing the Air Corps and our post-2013 members.

RACO represents over 95% of all commissioned officers and is therefore well placed to confidently speak to the challenges that are facing our membership and the wider Defence Forces. As the committee will no doubt note, most of the issues we will discuss today have featured in RACO’s previous appearances before this committee, in 2019 and 2021. Indeed, the only thing that really has changed is the strength of the organisation, and unfortunately not for the better. Our members have noted the largely positive outlook presented to this committee last week, underpinned by reporting on the implementation of the recommendations of the report of the Commission on the Defence Forces, but the reality is unfortunately somewhat different. Ambitious plans, with reports done and boxes ticked, may be presented as success in certain quarters but for the vast majority of serving personnel, it all means very little.

Promises of a bright future are welcome and necessary but our members are becoming accustomed to false dawns. The Defence Forces have been in a state of slow decline for almost a decade. It has reached the point that it is becoming irreversible; indeed, the attrition rate is intensifying, as the rate of reduction in strength clearly shows.

Numerous reviews and commissions have touched on the root cause of this decline without addressing it, namely, the failure adequately to resource defence in order to retain highly qualified and experienced personnel and maintain capability. The only true metric of the human capability of the Defence Forces is its strength versus establishment. The ambition for 2028 is 11,500 personnel. The recently updated current establishment figure is 9,600. In June 2021, when there were 8,580 personnel, we asked this committee if we had reached the bottom yet. As of 31 August this year, the strength stood at 7,671 personnel, or 79.9% of the current establishment and only 66.7% of the desired 2028 establishment. When the level of institutionalised vacancies is taken into account, encompassing personnel currently overseas, preparing for or just returned from overseas, on statutory leave, in long-term training and education, on induction training, or instructing that vital training, the numbers do not add up to 80% at all. They might not even reach 50% on an average day. That is just the Army. What about the Air Corps and the Naval Service? Why are so few aircraft operational? Why are three quarters of the State's fleet tied up in Haulbowline?

Recruitment is important and absolutely necessary, but so is retention. Expertise in any field, never mind the world of defence, can only be developed through experience. The fine cadets, recruits and apprentices joining the Defence Forces have ambition and potential but they lack experience. Thrusting them into positions of responsibility to fill gaps, without the time to gain that experience, is a recipe for disaster. As a case in point, more than 500 officers, or approximately 40% of our membership, have five years of commissioned service or less. This has severe implications for governance and supervision and it increases organisational risk.

We saw what was achieved last week with just one ship, one helicopter and highly qualified personnel working in a joint operation with other State agencies and international bodies. We can imagine what could be achieved if the Defence Forces were properly resourced for their current establishment, never mind the 2028 ambitions. The success of last week highlights the positive contribution the Defence Forces and their dedicated personnel can make to the State. Without adequately trained, motivated and incentivised personnel, the Defence Forces cannot contribute anything.

Last week, this committee heard that more than 95% of the early actions recommended by the Commission on the Defence Forces are now complete. However, we must consider what has really been completed. The early actions are littered with words like "commence", "evaluate", "develop", "explore" and "progress". Words like "actioned", "implemented" and "delivered" are largely absent, however, which is a significant point given we are talking about an action plan. Some work has been undertaken, granted, and certain improvements have happened, particularly for enlisted personnel. In truth, however, of the 95% of actions reported as completed, very few have yet to have any real impact on the ground or, going back to my first key point, on retention.

Richard Branson said: "Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to." The impact of operating with reduced numbers, and the associated stress, is felt across the entire Defence Forces. The Army is struggling to fulfil its assigned tasks, domestically and internationally. Ships are unable to go to sea and aircraft are not flying as a result of personnel shortages. Yet, the organisation continues to prioritise costly, labour-intensive recruitment policies in favour of tangible retention initiatives. The unsustainably high turnover rate and assumption of additional tasks such as the EU battle groups leads to the creation of a crippling operational and training tempo for remaining service personnel. Inadequate supervision and mentoring, combined with insufficient trained manning levels, leads to inevitable burnout and creates serious concerns for governance and the ability to manage risk and ensure the well-being of our personnel.

While pay and allowances have been repeatedly described as significantly improved, the reality is that while they have improved somewhat for new-entrant enlisted personnel, the extent of those improvements has been exaggerated and does not reflect the time commitment many Defence Forces personnel, particularly commissioned officers, commit. It is impossible to make a value judgment on the appropriateness or fairness of pay rates when the organisation does not even know how many hours its people are working. How many other public or private sector employers treat their workers like this, without even a defined working day or week? Furthermore, many key pay and allowance improvements have not been, nor are likely to be, implemented in the short term or even at all. Of those that have been implemented, many only benefit our colleagues in the enlisted personnel ranks. A key example of this is the specialised instructors allowance, which is vital to incentivise and reward quality instruction but is denied to our instructor members. White Paper projects, pay commission recommendations and allowance review mechanisms promised by Ministers and Department officials have seemingly disappeared into thin air. In the meantime, highly educated and experienced personnel are leaving for better conditions and work-life balance in the public and private sectors.

The Commission on the Defence Forces recommended that implementation of the working time directive should be urgently negotiated between management and representative associations as an early action under the high-level action plan. We have consistently argued that a failure to provide adequate rest and compensatory time off to military personnel significantly impacts their home life and the ability of many to sustain a career in the Defence Forces. For too long, management has treated members' time as an infinite resource, without consideration of work-life balance. The fact our organisation has never even recorded working time, in contravention of EU law, and still does not, denies our members access to benefits such as overtime that are available to other public sector employees. In stark contrast to members of An Garda Síochána, the Prison Service and, indeed, staff of all other public sector organisations, our Department and Minister do not appear to think us worthy of participating in a collective agreement on implementation. Notwithstanding strong commitments made by the Government to urgent implementation of the working time directive, the can is seemingly being further kicked down the road, with negotiations paused since May of this year and delivery timelines apparently extending without consultation.

Last week, the committee heard from our Chief of Staff, who said regarding pensions: "From the key takeaways and analysis of the exit surveys we have done, the pension issue has not arisen." RACO's own research into officers retiring voluntarily between 2020 and 2022 indicates that the vast majority - 78% - did not receive an exit interview or survey at all. Perhaps this has led to an incomplete interpretation of the key takeaways mentioned last week. For officers commissioned since 2013, pensions are a significant issue. For example, 22% of the first cadet class commissioned with this pension scheme have already left the organisation, and 79% of post-2013 officers have told us they do not see a long-term future in the organisation due to inadequate pension arrangements.

The Chief of Staff was not wrong when he stated that central issues affecting personnel include job satisfaction, work-life balance, working conditions, the uncertainty of postings, allowances and the pressures of work overall. However, to discount an issue that affects and will continue to affect an ever-growing proportion of serving personnel, particularly officers who are expected to lead, is concerning. More than 50% of RACO's members have been brought into the organisation since 2013. In 2021, the Chief of Staff told the Commission on Pensions:

The current Single Pension Scheme acts as a catalyst, pushing the Defence Forces' greatest asset (our people) to prematurely decide to depart the Permanent Defence Force. This affects operational capability and military effectiveness. As the principal military advisor to the Minister for Defence, it behoves me to advocate for special arrangements for the Permanent Defence Force personnel inducted under the Single Pension Scheme in order to compensate them for the unique nature and requirement of Military Service.

What has changed for Defence Forces personnel? Much time and effort has been spent on the really important issue of culture within the Defence Forces. The association of the actions of a few with the conduct of the vast majority has had a significant and negative impact on morale. The revelations of the Women of Honour in September 2021 have rightly shone a light on areas of unacceptable behaviour within the organisation, past and present, particularly for female personnel. RACO welcomes the statutory tribunal of inquiry, which must establish the facts and bring closure to victims of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment. The continued focus on and extensive use of the word "culture" to malign the vast majority of our dedicated Defence Forces personnel, and its use as the single most important benchmarking measurement of the organisation's effectiveness, serves to ignore the other systemic issues afflicting the Defence Forces. Again, critically, these include the lack of resourcing and the failure to retain suitably qualified and experienced personnel. Let us be clear. There are many positive elements of our culture, which are evident in the selfless and can-do attitude of our people, but the word "culture" has been hijacked by some in a negative way. People expect to be treated with respect and dignity but they must be valued and given purpose. When sidelined and not consulted, they become detached. This damages organisational culture.

RACO and PDFORRA, through our former membership of the independent monitoring group’s supervisory board, were once key stakeholders in addressing these negative workplace themes and frequently raised concerns that management was not using the agreed processes to the fullest possible extent in addressing and correcting recurring issues. The serious concerns raised tell us that no organisation can be complacent when it comes to unacceptable or criminal behaviour. We must all strive to keep the Defence Forces strong and vibrant but above all safe and welcoming for all members. The representative associations must be at the heart of ensuring that safety and well-being.

We continue to strongly believe in the value of the well-established independent monitoring group process, which unfortunately has been buried. We know we have a positive supervisory role to play in ensuring a healthy working climate for our members. The link between inadequate supervision, mentoring and governance and inappropriate behaviour and administration of complaints remains undeniable. Sadly, telling us we are stakeholders while treating us as outsiders is all too familiar and a recipe for failure. We have also experienced this exclusion from process throughout the recent Commission on the Defence Forces high-level action plan, following the pattern experienced by Defence Forces representation through the White Paper, climate survey, working time directive and high-level implementation plan for the pay commission.

Last week, this committee was told by the Secretary General and Chief of Staff about the new strategic framework for the Defence Forces and was advised that the Tánaiste has stated, “The priority within this transformation is cultural change above all else.” They advised that, in addition to the culture change, there are also transformation actions that will ensure the Defence Forces is an equal opportunities employer, is reflective of contemporary Irish society, provides a safe workplace and a fit-for-purpose organisation, is equipped to defend the State and meet the challenges of today and the future, and is an organisation where all members are treated with dignity and respect. We thoroughly endorse this ambition but this cultural change must include the senior management of the Department of Defence and the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, whose dismissive and frustrating approach to our conciliation and arbitration scheme has manifested itself in a complete abuse of a dominant position.

We are engaging in a process of reviewing our conciliation and arbitration scheme and it is no exaggeration to say that, if real and meaningful change does not occur, then the scheme is, unfortunately, dead. The scope of representation is clearly laid down in Defence Forces regulations and should be understood by absolutely everyone. The manner in which senior management, both civil and, at times, military, have suppressed the employee voice in the organisation through a refusal to consult on matters that are clearly within scope is an extremely poor reflection on their attitude not just to representation in the Defence Forces but to every soldier, sailor, aircrew, non-commissioned officer and officer. There are many recent examples and it is only getting worse. This must change if the organisation is to survive and, ultimately, in time, thrive.

Normal public service employment conditions do not apply to those in the Defence Forces. Serving Defence Forces personnel forfeit normal employee status while remaining subject to military law at all times. They have no right to strike and can be called on 24-7, 365 days of the year. They have an unlimited liability contract which requires them to face hardship and danger for the benefit of others. Personnel are subject to mandatory early retirement and are subject to annual military standard medical and fitness testing. In recognition of these service restrictions and industrial relations limitations, defence management’s obligation should be to advocate strongly on behalf of Defence Forces personnel. What our members see is an ongoing failure to compensate us for our lack of fundamental employee rights and, in so doing, a failure to ensure the Defence Forces are not disadvantaged relative to other public service employees. Indeed, the inability of military personnel to withdraw labour has been exploited by an adversarial and dysfunctional industrial relations climate which has been to the detriment of the well-being of the most loyal citizens of this State.

Gandhi said “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members”. We willingly accept the restrictions on civil liberties that are part and parcel of military service, but this cannot be completely taken for granted by Government. Government should be compensating Defence Forces members for the unique nature of military service and the sacrifices members and their families make. Instead, the formerly well-recognised and beneficial aspects of military service that attracted and, most importantly, retained highly qualified and experienced personnel and which offset this lack of employment rights are being stripped away.

The most important key performance indicator and measure of whether employment policies and conditions of service are attractive and effective is the strength of the organisation. This is the one statistic that cannot be fudged and cannot be spun. At 80% of current establishment and 66% of required future establishment, the evidence is clear. The obsession with recruitment over retention is not working. It is time for real transformation, and that starts with changing the habit of a lifetime and listening to the employee voice rather than continuing to sideline it. This takes humility, self-awareness and real leadership and is badly needed. Government has within its power the ability to quickly remedy many of the retention difficulties being experienced by Óglaigh na hÉireann and to begin to rehabilitate this proud and loyal organisation. Small retention measures such as patrol duty allowance in the Naval Service, instructors allowance for people conducting induction training, supplementary pension for those recruited post 2013, and the recording of working time can be implemented in days but would have long-lasting benefits. It is for Government to decide whether we are finally going to take the security of our State seriously and resource and retain our Defence Forces personnel.

We thank the Cathaoirleach and the committee for their time. We are happy to take questions.