Officers in the Defence Forces are still being required to work overtime for rates as low as €4 an hour, their union’s annual conference has been told.
Representative Association of Commissioned Officers (Raco) delegates unanimously backed a motion on Tuesday calling for security duty allowances – effectively payments for overtime – to be linked to the national minimum wage as this would yield increases of 66 per cent in some instances to the allowances currently paid.
“Overtime payments are generally linked to your actual wage,” observed Raco president Lt Col Martin Ryan. “The fact we are trying to get this one linked to the minimum wage tells you something.”
The organisation has been seeking talks to the Government on the issue since February when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) found in favour of Raco and the Permanent Defence Force Other Ranks Representative Association (Pdforra) in a case taken in relation to working conditions.
About 50 of the forces’ most senior officers receive no payments but have been routinely rostered to work overtime during Ireland’s presidency of the EU. “If you are not going to pay them, that’s fine,” Raco general secretary Lt Col Conor King said at the event. “Just don’t ask them to do the extra work.”
King is expected to call on Minister for Defence Helen McEntee, who is due to address the conference on Wednesday, to address the overtime issue as well as one relating to pensions for officers who joined after 2013.
While Chief of Staff Lt Gen Rossa Mulcahy told the conference that personnel numbers were showing signs of recovery, with 17 consecutive months of growth taking the total above 8,000 for the first time since 2023, delegates heard that more than half of the first army cadet class to join after the pension cuts had already left and “you’d be foolish if you didn’t think the others were planning their escape route”, according to one officer.
Representatives of Air Corps personnel suggested there would be an exodus of recruits to that service from the period too as soon as their initial 12-year contract expires.
Raco wants to see the reinstatement of the supplementary pension cut in 2013. It had previously helped to bridge the gap between retirement from the Defence Forces and the State pension. That gap now lasts four years and the conference heard of officers having to go long before that so as to try to get established in a second career while they still regard themselves as employable.
Cadet starting pay of about €25,000 was also raised, with Ryan among those to suggest raising the age ceiling on recruitment to 39 was a waste of time if pay remained at that level.
There is, however, the potential for someone to join as an enlisted member (private) on about €45,000 then switch to cadet training after six months.
“We don’t get many joining who are over 30,” said King, “We do have people taking the enlisted route, though, and that’s just a colossal waste of resources and money that needs to be addressed as well as leaving people on almost twice the money their classmates are getting.”
King said Raco’s hope is that some of the issues will be raised as part of the public sector pay talks.
Confirmation on Monday evening that the Council of Ministers had adopted the ECJ decision which found the Ireland to be in breach of the European Social Charter in relation to pay for hours worked, overtime and public holidays, meanwhile, meant the Government no longer had any “excuse” not to engage on the issue, King suggested.
He would, he said, be raising the matter with McEntee on Wednesday and writing to the department as soon as the conference is over.
Mulcahy, meanwhile, said he continues “to provide military advice and recommendations to Government regarding possible future overseas deployments”.
A spokesperson for the Department of Defence said: “The Minister has indicated a clear interest in exploring how Ireland might contribute to any future EU supports for Lebanon given Ireland’s long-standing support for Lebanon, where Defence Forces peacekeepers have served in Unifil for almost 50 years.
“At EU level, discussions on the operational requirements of the proposed mission are ongoing. At this stage, no decisions have been taken regarding the nature or scale of any Irish contribution.”