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Personnel shortages meant the Defence Forces was now “overcommitted” on overseas missions and the workload and conditions had become so hostile the forces were about to enter into a “generation resignation” era, officers have claimed.
The leaders of Representative Association for Commissioned Officers’ (Raco), which represents commissioned officers, said while a “crippling” programme of recruitment was under way, numbers across the Defence Forces continued to decline.
They used their biennial delegate conference in Naas, Co Kildare, to tell Minister for Defence Simon Coveney that conditions for existing personnel need to be improved in a bid to retain them, rather than trying to grow the Defence Forces through recruitment, which had been failing for years.
Raco general secretaryComdt Conor King told Mr Coveney that in 2016, University of Limerick researchers identified a “dysfunctional cycle of turnover” in the Defence Forces as its strength diminished. This had “led to an ever-decreasing pool of suitably qualified and experienced personnel”. That was was a “grave risk” for the military, whose “stock in trade” was the “profession of arms and the management and execution of lethal force”.
However, in the five years to the end of 2020 and since the UL researchers’ findings were made, some 3,679 personnel had left the Defence Forces but just 3,116 had been recruited.
“This rate of churn has also led to a crippling recruitment effort, delivered by our members, but no amount of water has been able to fill the leaky bucket that the organisation has become,” said Comdt King, whose association represents about 1,200 commissioned officers across the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps.
He added that across the Defence Forces, about 24 per cent of all personnel had five years service or less. Among commissioned officers, 35 per cent had five years service or less.
He believed this had “severe implications for governance and supervision and increases organisational risk”.
The Defence Forces was now so short of personnel that “mandatory selection” for overseas missions was becoming more common. This often had significant impact on people’s family lives, made continued military service much more unattractive and was adding to more personnel deciding to resign.
The need to man overseas missions, combined with personnel shortages through the Defence Forces, meant the number of captains based at home was just 56 per cent of what it should be.
Intolerable
Raco president Comdt Luke Foley said conditions were becoming so intolerable, with heavy workloads and very short notice of new postings, that many officers planned to leave the forces in the years ahead.
“I strongly believe that if we do not address these issues now, we will see a large number of our middle management leave the organisation in the coming years, our own generation resignation,” he said.
While it was stated the Naval Service’s strength was 83 per cent of its establishment - the so-called minimum size set down - when one stripped out personnel in training, it was now down to 63 per cent of full strength.
“The specialist nature of most Navy positions makes it untenable to even consider recruitment as a tool to keep our ships at sea,” he said, adding an increase in patrol duty allowance would assist in retaining high skilled personnel.
The Air Corps was now operating in some areas, including air ambulance and flying Garda aircraft, on 50 per cent of what pilot numbers should be.
“The mindset of the officers having a vocation and a duty to the organisation has increasingly changed, and it is becoming just another job,” Comdt Foley said. “Another job that demands more and more in relation to strain on the family, geographical location, lack of defined working hours, and last minute commitments. For many members the loyalty they have shown to the organisation is not reciprocated.”
Mr Coveney and Defence Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Seán Clancy were both due to address delegates on Tuesday afternoon.