Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not sure it is fair to compare the work that customs officers do at sea with that of the Naval Service in terms of time at sea and so forth. It is quite different. However, I take the point. The truth is that it took us many months to negotiate the terms and conditions for the sea-going service commitment scheme because there was a legitimate concern in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform that if everybody could avail of this, it would just be seen as a pay increase. We were looking for agreement on this at the same time as the last public sector pay round was under discussion. These things are not straightforward. It is not in my gift, as Minister for Defence, to simply just announce a scheme and start paying people more. We have to negotiate that with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, it has to be consistent with public sector pay policy and precedents can be set and so forth, so it was in that context. It is not so much that the scheme's credibility was undermined because the conditions were clear from the outset. Certainly, many more people would like to join the scheme if possible. The question is whether we can broaden the qualification criteria to allow more people into the scheme, which is something we are examining.

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