WE’RE SUNK
Personnel on the LE Niamh children’s allowance is what we use to do a big shop. My daughter’s birthday is coming up and we can’t do anything for that. I don’t know if I’ll have enough money for the electricity meter.
“The most upsetting part is having to say no to your kids.
“I feel like we’ve failed them. They’re getting to the stage where they don’t even ask for things.”
The woman said Operation Pontus had taken a heavy toll on her husband. She revealed: “Last year he found it very hard. He had to deal with dead bodies, bodies of drowned young children.
“It put a massive strain on our relationship. I remember looking at him thinking, ‘I want my husband back’.
“I could scream, ‘We need that money now.’ To be down there doing that work and not be paid properly for it, that is the last straw.”
Senator Gerard Craughwell called on Defence Minister Paul Kehoe to resign LE Niamh (P52) is a Roisinclass offshore patrol vessel commissioned in 2001. It is armed with a dual purpose gun, two machine guns and two anti-aircraft cannon. Migrants rescued from fishing vessel and demanded a commitment sailors in the Mediterranean “immediately receive full UN pay”. Earlier this week Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin warned in the Dail “people will die” if the “deep crisis at all rank and level” within the defence forces is not addressed. He said researchers at the University of Limerick interviewed more than 600 personnel revealing “a shocking story of neglect of the defence forces which underpinned democracy”. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar denied there was a deep crisis but admitted there were “real, substantive issues that need to be dealt with”. He added: “Mr Kehoe will meet the representative associations to discuss the findings of the report.” A Department of Defence spokesman said: “Payment of the relevant allowances to all personnel concerned is being prioritised.”
Real, substantive issues that need to be dealt with TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR
news@irishmirror.ie