Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I hear different figures from everyone around the House. Someone told me previously that 70% of members of the Defence Forces are on family income supplement. I totally dispute that figure. I have acknowledged in the past, and I will continue to do so until we solve the problem, that there are retention issues and the reason for those is the improving economy. I want to state also that the Irish Defence Forces was the only public service organisation that had continuous recruitment from 2011. When no other organisation in the public sector was recruiting, the Irish Defence Forces continued to recruit.

I referred earlier to the public pay commission report published last week, which set out clearly the challenges we face as an organisation. We are moving on to part 2 of that with public service pay and representative organisations will be very much included in that.

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