Howlin suggests separate pay assessment for Defence Forces

Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin has suggested consideration be given to separating the Defence Forces from the public service for a pay review.

“I say this in the full knowledge of how difficult it would be,’’ he said.

“The shockingly low pay levels across the sector are having an impact on the retention in key skills’ areas.’’

Mr Howlin, a former minister for public expenditure, told the Dáil when similar difficulties arose in the health sector, a formula was devised to deal with them.

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Tánaiste Simon Coveney said successful negotiations with the Defence Forces' representative associations had led to significant pay increases under the Lansdowne Road agreement.

The public service stability agreement for the period 2018-2020 provided for a series of further pay increases in the next three years.

“Given the ministerial offices deputy Brendan Howlin has held, he will know of the difficulty in separating one sector from all others for special treatment in public sector pay, but that is what he is asking us to do,’’ Mr Coveney added.

He said there were other ways whereby the department could make supports available to Defence Forces’ personnel.

He said the Government would listen to the representatives of the Defence Forces.

“However, we have to operate within a certain pay structure across the public sector,’’ he added.

“If we were to start to dismantle it for individual sectors, the deputy knows the chaos it would cause.’’

Unilaterally

The Government had been happy to act unilaterally in respect of the new Garda commissioner and highly paid academics, Mr Howlin said.

“I believe genuinely that the Government would find consensus in the House for a bespoke pay review for the Defence Forces, which is warranted and urgently required,’’ Mr Howlin added.

Mr Howlin said the wives and partners of the Defence Forces were outside Leinster House highlighting some of the issues involved.

Demonstrations were staged by partners and supporters outside the Dáil and at barracks across on the country over pay and conditions on Thursday.

The Wives and Partners of Defence Forces (WPDF) says that the families of many lower-paid members of the Defence Forces, as many as a fifth of personnel, are so financially stretched that they rely on social welfare payments to make ends meet and cover food and living costs.