Mr. Conor King:

Regarding the post-2013 pension, over 50% of our members are post-2013. This is the result of a number of factors such as the intense recruitment or induction into the cadet school between 2016 and 2019 where there were unprecedented levels - 100-person classes - that the school really was not equipped to deal with but dealt with as best it could and the rate of turnover, that is, the people who were leaving. The experienced people were leaving and the inexperienced people were coming in, which is the reason for almost 40% of all commissioned officers having five years commissioned service or less. When you have of a cohort of more than 50% that is telling you that the single pension scheme does not provide a viable pension to enable it to have a career, when you see that the Chief of Staff has recognised this and told the Pensions Commission about it and when you have gardaí, firefighters, people working in the national ambulance service and prison officers all saying that they cannot have a viable career in those front-line uniformed services, something is wrong and we have to listen and see what the problem is.

It is quite clear. It is the supplementary pension. A supplementary pension facility was available to uniformed fast accrual and front-line personnel up to December 2012. That gave people the option to stay in the organisation and progress up through the ranks safe in the knowledge that they would have a modest income at the end of their service life be it 40 years if you came in as an 18-year-old or 20-year-old. You are actually forced to retire. People say that one size fits all. You are talking about one size fits all when you are talking about a single pension scheme. It is one size fits all for that policy but for mandatory retirement, it is completely different so we cannot just judge people on a one-size-fits-all basis if it is not one size fits all across the board.

Senator Craughwell asked where people are going. They are going to lots of places and are going for different reasons with the principal one being the pension. They are also leaving because of work-life balance, certainty and predictability. We see a lot of our captain members going to the Civil Service and into Government Departments where they can serve until 70 years of age and get a full pension, where they have a predictability of service and generally have a nine to five job, where they are not posted overseas or anywhere around the country on a whim and where mobility exists but on their terms and not the organisation's terms.

Captain Bray is a member of our post-2013 cohort. Would Captain Bray like to come in on that?