Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Recently, I met the Wives & Partners of the Defence Forces, WPDF, which was created to give a voice to the men and women of our Defence Forces. Their story is a harrowing one which should be deeply worrying to every Member of the House. Those I met provided me with a compilation of testimonies from wives of personnel in our Army, Naval Service and Air Corps. They are heart-rending. A common theme throughout the testimonies is the inability to make ends meet on a daily basis. One of the testimonies said:

We have no future. We will never own our own house, we will never be able to afford a holiday...to send our children to college. These used to be priorities for us but now all we want is to be able to put food on our kitchen table every night.

There are daily worries right throughout the testimonies about how they will feed their families because "our money is not good enough." Unable to pay electricity and utility bills, some are dependent on moneylenders. Some are worrying about the winter:

I really hope something comes out of this and we as a group can make some changes. It's needed. I don't know how I'm going to cope if it keeps on like this. The constant fear is scary.

Others rely on their parents to bail them out. As I have said, all are filled with anxiety. As one person said, "The Defence Forces has put my family on the breadline and have robbed me of my health and my sanity."Many of these are military families with a proud tradition of service in our Defence Forces and to the nation. They say they have genuine fears about their inability to provide. Every day I hear stories of military families on the bread-line with massive debts and loan sharks at the door. Their pride is ebbing and morale is at an all-time low.

I want to ask the Taoiseach a number of basic questions. Does he accept that morale is at an all-time low in our Defence Forces, that their families are struggling daily to make ends meet and that the State is not treating our Defence Forces personnel with respect and dignity? There are very serious recruitment and retention issues. In this modern era, is it not about time that Permanent Defence Forces Representative Association, PDFORRA, and the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers, RACO, would have negotiating rights and access to the industrial relations machinery of the State, just as is the case with An Garda Síochána.

See this speech in context