Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for interrupting. My questions relate primarily to the working time directive. It is a good segue. I was conscious reading the statement earlier that we are all aware of A Tale of Two Cities. What the committee has had over the past week is a tale of two virtually parallel worlds, one that was presented by the Department last week which was a tale of great progress, stabilisation and advancement and another presented by RACO which suggested that the only thing which has really changed is the strength of the organisation, and not for the better. That is stark language to use and stands in stark contrast to what we were told by the Department last week.

Unfortunately, from the Department's point of view the indicators used to adjudicate these things are stacked very much in support of the suggestions RACO has made today. Under the best case scenario presented to us for 2023, more people will leave the Defence Forces this year than will join. If that continues for a decade or more, we will be on the wrong side of where we need to be.

Last week, the Department mentioned a number of times the objective to stabilise. Stabilisation was mentioned a number of times. I was struck by the fact that if we send any team out hoping for a draw, more often than not the team will lose. That is not the type of vision or ambition that is required.

The witnesses may be able to answer a question I have which the Department could not answer last week. Assuming that we are now at crisis point, at what point does this become an emergency or existential crisis? We are now at 7,600. At what point will we say that we do not have a Defence Forces or one that is capable of doing what we expect of such a force? With due respect to the Senator, America's east flank or Europe's western flank are not relevant. This is about our national strategic interest. When do we reach a tipping point?

Every single member of the Defence Forces I have spoken to, past and present, has told me that the game changer is the working time directive. That is when we get to a point that members of the Defence Forces feel valued and appreciated and that the political system has listened to what current and thousands of former members have said. When we are talking about a retention crisis, is it correct to say that the biggest single retention initiative that could be taken is the implementation of the working time directive?

We heard political commitments last week in the Dáil. It is difficult to understand how we see what appear to be rationales for further delays. Last week, we were essentially told that there is no costing on the implementation of the working time directive. I do not know how a Department can have an ambition to deliver something without being costed.

We also heard that there will be a need for a legislative change, but no real timeframe. Does RACO have any experience from other member states? Some European states, including Germany and Sweden, implemented the directive. What was the process involved? Are there lessons we could learn from that?

I was struck by a comment in an opening statement, "The Department and the Minister do not appear to think us worthy of participating in a collective agreement on implementation". Could RACO elaborate on that? Perhaps the witnesses could cite what they think is an appropriate mechanism for a collective agreement to be arranged and an appropriate role for the organisation and PDFORRA to play. That would be very useful.

The witnesses touched on the pension scheme and articulated very well the impact the 2013 reforms had. Could they outline whether there has been engagement with the Department in respect of reverting to the former position, for the reasons they have outlined?

Is there a cost associated with that?

Recognising that other members will come in and the time, I have just two questions. The conciliation and arbitration scheme was touched on with the Senator. It is eminently sensible that when dealing with the industrial relations framework the Defence Forces have to operate in, there would be a conciliation and arbitration scheme that is robust, flexible when it needs to be, very clear and operational all the time. I understand there were different elements of that scheme that basically became dysfunctional because people were not in place at different times. I know there is discussion on a review of that. What does that review need to find at the end of the day?

In respect of the operational capacity of the Defence Forces, as the witnesses mentioned and I think this committee acknowledged last week, what we saw off the coast last week shows how brilliantly this State can be serviced when our Defence Forces are provided with any level of resources. The operation was world class, yet it operated in suboptimal circumstances due to capacity and otherwise. We have heard much discussion around engagement with EU battle groups, for example. That has come at a cost because we are withdrawing from the Golan Heights UN mission, which I think is regrettable. Regarding the organisational capacity difficulties that were outlined, what do RACO members think about our agreement at EU and other levels to sign up to multilateral or EU-wide initiatives while we are dealing with deficiencies in the numbers domestically? One of the witnesses’ colleagues described it to me as a vanity project in some respects, where Government is signing up to initiatives at EU level without recognising the serious crisis and deficiencies in place within the forces here. I welcome any comments on that.