Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am glad the Minister mentioned the officer corps because, according to RACO, the representative body of serving members of the officer corps, there is a mass exodus of officers from our Defence Forces. If this is not addressed, it could seriously affect our operating capabilities. So far this year, 48 applications have been processed for early retirement from the officer corps and there are currently 90 officer vacancies. Last year, 76 officers quit the corps. RACO said that management had disappointingly failed to engage with or constructively respond to issues and concerns raised at its conference. These include the failure to address ongoing retention of personnel and the failure to put in place family-friendly policies. At the moment, we are constantly moving people around and we expect them to stay in our Defence Forces when they cannot possibly maintain a healthy family life. I urge the Minister to facilitate members in having a family-friendly working environment and adequate IT facilities, with hot desks so that they can work from remote locations. I urge him to restore the instructors' allowance, as this encouraged people to stay in our Defence Forces, and I also ask him to restore the Army ranger wing allowance. We need to compete with the private sector but we are not doing that and are losing people because we are not an attractive option for qualified, experienced and excellent personnel. If we do not do something about that, we are in danger of losing very good people whom we will not get back.

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