Catherine Callaghan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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68. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence the steps being taken to increase the numbers of personnel serving in the Air Corps to ensure an appropriate level of service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30987/25]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The strength of the Air Corps, as at 30 April 2025, stood at 724 personnel of an agreed establishment strength of 886 personnel.

A General Service recruitment competition for Air Corps recruits specifically, was launched in November 2022 and remains open all year long for applications. In 2024 46 General Service Recruits were inducted into the Air Corp, which compares favourably to the 10 General Service Recruits that were inducted in 2023. As of the 30 April 2025, there have been 10 General Service Recruits inducted.

Overall pilot strength is healthy with a further cadet class due to be inducted in October 2025. The 2025 Air Craft Maintenance Technician competition is in the final stages of preparation and will be launched shortly. 2 new competitions were launched in 2024 for the Air Corps. An Aeronautical Engineer Officer Direct Entry competition which resulted in 5 inductions and a cadetship competition for Air Traffic Controllers which resulted in 3 cadets being inducted. The Air Traffic Controller cadetship for 2025 has closed for applications and they are being processed. A new Direct Entry Air Traffic Controller competition has been approved.

The schemes, to re-commission former personnel has resulted in 14 personnel being re-commissioned since October 2019 and re-enlist ‘other ranks’ has resulted in 17 personnel re-enlisting since 2020. Both schemes remain open for applications.

Government has introduced a number of key enabling measures to drive Defence Forces recruitment. These include an increase in recruitment age to 39 years for those roles that had a recruitment age below that, and to 50 years for Direct Entry Specialists. The mandatory retirement age has been increased to 62. Private secondary healthcare has been rolled out to all PDF members in addition to the application of the Working Time Directive across the Defence Forces subject to certain exemptions.

There has been significant progress on pay in recent years while, with specific reference to the Air Corps, 37 personnel have availed of the Air Corps Service Commitment Scheme since its launch in 2019. I have obtained Government approval this week to extend the Service Commitment Scheme to Air Traffic Control personnel with a view to addressing the specific challenges in the Air Traffic Control service.

Budget 2025 provided a record allocation of €1.35 billion for the Defence Sector, an increase of €100 million. In relation to specific recruitment targets, this allocation provides for the recruitment of at least a net additional 400 personnel per annum which would be inclusive of Air Corps personnel.

Whilst there are still undoubtedly challenges, significant progress has been made on a number of fronts and the allocation of record levels of expenditure to the Defence sector is illustrative of my intent in this regard.