Mr. Se?n Clancy:

The overall work-life balance is one of the priorities I have set in terms of the Defence Forces as a whole. I set three key priorities when I came in as Chief of Staff, and health and well-being of the personnel and work-life balance are contained within that.

The Defence Forces work 24-7, as Senator Craughwell noted, and we do not distinguish between weekdays and weekends per se. We have people on duty, working throughout the year, 24-7, in many installations, including in messes, in catering and so on throughout the organisation, as the Deputy can appreciate. In most of the barracks bar the main command barracks, we have centralised all of our catering into one, so there is no distinction between, for instance, the officers dining in Athlone barracks and the enlisted personnel dining in Athlone barracks. Chefs work weekends to cater whoever is in those barracks.

It is a wider issue of work-life balance that we are trying to address. We have not addressed all of the problems or issues and we are constantly trying to find ways to improve work-life balance for everybody in the organisation. When we look at the duties we perform, I have the review ongoing on our aid to the civil power or aid to the civil authority activities that are outside normal work days and on weekends, which are drawing heavily on the resources of the Defence Forces. That review is ongoing as part of the Commission on the Defence Forces’ specific recommendations. We have already made inroads into reducing our commitments to give greater flexibility around the working hours that are being performed by our soldiers, sailors and aircrew within the organisation and we continue with that process.

On a final point regarding catering, we have the front-of-house catering externalised, so all of the front-of-house that is delivered in our messes or catering centres is delivered by an external contracting company. I want to give the Deputy that information to make sure she has an understanding.