Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)

Very often, people want to serve. The Minister spoke about the quality of the people he inspected recently. The men and women of the Defence Forces are our greatest asset. Even at times when payments and allowances were less favourable, people wanted to join.

The difficulty is that many of these people are very capable, skilled and experienced and are the kind of people private industry wants. In many instances, the challenge we have faced is that highly qualified and very capable members of the Defence Forces, due to their difficulty in making ends meet or the pressures they are under due to the cost of living crisis, see more attractive pay and conditions in industries such as pharmaceuticals, medtech and other areas.

In terms of the retention of officers and personnel more generally in the Defence Forces, we need a specialist pay review to be established. We need to review the post-2013 pension arrangements and training establishment.

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