Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)
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To ask the Minister for Defence his views on whether most of the allowances paid to Defence Forces personnel form part of core pay, and will be protected in the event of any review of such allowances. [48562/12]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy is aware the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has already undertaken a review of allowances and premium payments across the public sector and proposals were brought to Government for decision. Further to this, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform published the results of this review of allowances and the outcome of the Government decision on its website at www.per.gov.ie. In the interests of bringing forward these savings to the paybill, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform wrote to my Department instructing management to immediately engage with staff interests with a view to securing their early agreement to the elimination of certain Defence Forces allowances.

While Military Service Allowance and some other allowances may be considered to be part of core pay it is important to understand that the term "Allowances" in the Defence sector covers a variety of payment types that are very different from each other. Some are intended to reimburse expenses and do not actually form part of remuneration. Some payments are made in recognition of particular technical or professional qualifications while other allowances recognise particularly onerous duties whether at home or overseas that fall outside the norms taken into account in setting basic pay while also reflecting the fact that the Defence Forces do not receive overtime.

It is also important to recognise that almost two thirds of the payments on allowances is accounted for by the top three categories of allowance, that is, Technician Pay, Security Duty Allowances, and Overseas Peace Support Allowances. The Technical Pay and Security Duty Allowance had previously been selected for review as part of the Defence Sectoral Croke Park Agreement and are currently being addressed with the Representative Associations in accordance with agreed procedures under the Conciliation and Arbitration Scheme for the Defence Forces. The Deputy will appreciate that as discussions under this Scheme are confidential to the parties involved it would not be appropriate for me to comment further on this issue at this juncture.