State naval vessels ‘lying idle’ due to lack of trained crew

State naval vessels worth tens of millions of euro are idle for the want of appropriately trained staff, an Oireachtas committee has been told.

The committee also heard that specialist technicians in the Air Corps are in short supply and there are hundreds of vacancies in the Army.

PDforra, the organisation that represents about 6,500 enlisted personnel in the Defence Forces, said failure to keep pace with movements in pay, legislation and societal norms would result in it falling further behind in terms of recruiting and retention.

PDforra general secretary Gerard Guinan told the Oireachtas joint committee on foreign affairs and defence on Tuesday that it did not favour establishment of a permanent pay review body for military personnel. This is proposed in the programme for government but PDforra believes its members would be better served by the organisation being permitted to affiliate to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

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Mr Guinan told the committee that PDforra had engaged with every forum and process that it believed could make a difference and improve the lot of members.

“Regrettably, there has been a lack of engagement by various parties which has seen our association turn in ever-increasing numbers to the court system for relief.”

He said PDforra is “in the process of preparing multiple court actions due to the failure to secure agreement on basic rights-based issues”.

Mr Guinan maintained the Defence Forces continued to experience serious staff-retention problems.

“The Naval Service now has a strength figure of just over 800. Given numbers in training, the numbers of non-seagoing appointments across both the commissioned and enlisted ranks and the numbers of personnel who have completed their sea/shore rotation, the numbers of personnel actually available to go to sea is extremely limited. PDforra has, for years, advised our department, military management and public representatives that there was no elasticity in the system should a crisis arise. The net result is the inability of State ships to go to sea. In some instances vessels worth tens of millions of euro are idle for the lack of appropriately trained staff,” he said.

“Specialist technicians within the Air Corps are also in short supply with significant shortfalls in personnel across a wide spectrum of specialities. This is feeding a growing incidence of burnout and departure.

“The Army also has significant difficulties with the retention of personnel. Indicative of the trend in personnel leaving is the fact that in 2016 there were 44 sergeant vacancies within the Army. This has now risen to 155 in 2021, with 267 vacancies across the whole organisation.”

Line units under strength

Mr Guinan said many of these vacancies were technician positions. He said these took “years to backfill as personnel have to qualify in both their technical area and to the appropriate military rank”.

However, he said there are also multiple vacancies in line units also , with some having significant shortfalls of sergeants and corporals.

“All told there would be in excess of 650 vacancies at corporal level if all the sergeant vacancies were filled.”

He said the Defence Forces had not been helped over recent years by the lack “of any formal working time agreement, with members working extensive hours for rates of pay that are more appropriate for flat hours”.

Mr Guinan said PDforra never sought a permanent pay-review body – which is supported by the organisation representing military officers. He suggested such a body could prove “to be counterproductive and give rise to even greater problems in time”.

He said it had mooted a once-off commission could try to re-establish relativities between Defence Forces’ pay and pay in the wider public service which had been broken over the years.