Mr. Brian O'Keeffe:

There is scope to consolidate some allowances but not many because of the reasons outlined by Mr. Howard. Some duties are not performed by all personnel and not all personnel have the same qualifications. How would one pay a balanced amount to all personnel? A certain degree of rationalisation would be possible and we did some of that in 1998, when we consolidated certain officers’ allowances into three bands of pay. Pay is now calculated by band, or professional classification, as well as rank. Three captains could be paid differently according to their bands. That is common in other armies. The British army in particular have developed pay banding in lieu of other allowances. However, there is not a great deal of scope for expanding that. We look forward to the review and we will engage with it enthusiastically.