Mr. Conor King:

Absolutely. As for the budget next week, it is difficult. It is not like supermarket sweep. I cannot go in and ask for exactly what I want, but there are things that are needed, such as the patrol duty allowance. I do not know what the figure is. Mr. O'Mearain has tried to quantify what it takes to double crew the ships as per the level of ambition in the Commission on the Defence Forces. Nobody could disagree with the fact that a reasonable request is the same as and no more than what is received by those in other State agencies which are seagoing. If that is not in the budget next week, that tells our members there is no urgency in solving the retention crisis in the Naval Service.

What we are not trying to convey here is pessimism. What we are trying to convey is a serious concern that every single day we see friends of ours leaving the organisation. I see my members, who are anxious and stressed, double- and treble-jobbing, going home on a Friday thinking already about Monday because they know they have several jobs to do. Every decision that is made by a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer, NCO, or anybody with a degree of leadership responsibility is made in the knowledge that he or she has to compromise and give up something to do something else. What ball will drop if I pick this one up? That is no way for anybody to work. That is what the reduction of numbers in the Defence Forces has brought upon our members' heads. It is not a good way to do business. The Commission on the Defence Forces told us in 2022 that urgent remedial action was required. Forgive us if we look at an early action to be completed within six months of a Government decision in July 2022, six months passed in December 2022 and it is now October 2023. That does not convey a sense of urgency to anybody with any degree of intelligence.

On the budget next week, I cite patrol duty allowance. We are trying to induct numbers. The Tánaiste and Minister for Defence has said we need a radical approach to recruitment and we can see the prioritisation of recruitment over retention because there are pathways to recruitment but it is all on our members all the time. I want to see a specialised instructor allowance in the budget next week for members who are working 60- or 70-hour weeks bringing in cadets, recruits and apprentices. That is what I want to see. I cannot come with a shopping list, but those are two obvious ones. If some sort of guarantee or projection in the budget was made for the supplementary pension for those recruited post 2013, that would be a seismic change for the Defence Forces in terms of retention.

To become an employer of choice, there are things we can do. Deputy Stanton talked about retention bonuses. We have costed that. The Department has it. We do not know whether the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform has it. No one will engage with us on these issues. These were issues we sold to our members in relation to the acceptance of the high-level implementation plan, Strengthen our Defence Forces, which had, as its tag line, to make the Defence Forces an employer of choice. We know what is needed. We just need to implement it.

On health and safety, we will not comment on operations but we will comment on health and safety. I have touched on the stress and anxiety people are undergoing when they have to make decisions to drop one ball to run with the other. Many of our activities, to use that word, are one person deep.

Without one person, one aircraft or one platform, the operation does not go ahead. This has to do with largely human factors, involving staff from pilots, ship captains and engineers to engine-room artificers and even chefs and medics. A Naval Service ship generally will not go to sea if one person is ill or otherwise indisposed.