DEFENCE LESS
Army, navy & air corps see strength fall
A TD has accused the Government of neglecting the Defence Forces as their strength hit a new low.
Personnel numbers dropped to 8,989 threshold at the end of September – it was 9,219 a year ago.
The agreed strength of 9,500 was specified in a White Paper in 2015.
Fianna Fail’s defence spokesman Jack Chambers, said: “Under Fine Gael, the Defence Forces is continuing to move further away from its approved establishment strength of 9,500 – a target that it has never even come close to achieving over the last five years.”
The reduced Sculpture dwarfs onlookers numbers come despite 331 recruits this year. Currently there are 7,247 soldiers, 720 in the Air Corps, and 1,022 in the Naval Service.
A survey by the Defence Forces HR found most who left did so for better pay and conditions. Mr Chambers added: “Morale is extremely low Jack Chambers and has not been helped by the decision not to make a recommendation to the Public Sector Pay Commission to increase pay.”
Mr Chambers also said it was “deeply unfair” that personnel would have to wait until next year for a wage rise. The figures also showed only 16 out of this year’s recruits are female. It was further revealed there are no female candidates out of the overall 20 who joined the Air Corps since January. There are nine female personnel in the Army out of 248, and seven out of 63 in the Naval Service.
Only nine out of the 85 cadets inducted in the Permanent Defence Forces this year were female.
Gender breakdown of the Reserve Defence Forces this year was similar with only 13 from 115 Army Reserve personnel and two out of the 13 Naval Service Reserve personnel being female.
of this years 331 Defence Forces recruits are female