Provision of overtime pay for Defence Forces must be considered, say military officers

The provision of overtime payments for members of the Defence Forces must be considered, military officers have said.

In a submission to the new independent commission on the Defence Forces, which was established late last year by the Government, they maintained that military personnel were the worst affected by the constraints of the current model for determining pay across the public service.

The association representing commissioned officers, RACO, said pay relativities between military personnel and other groups in the public service needed to be broken.

RACO urged the establishment of a separate pay body to determine remuneration for personnel in the Defence Forces that should not be constrained by agreements made between the Government and public service trade unions.

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RACO said it was clear in the current environment the Defence Forces could not meet the official limits on hours of work set out under the Working Time Directive and maintain its levels of operations at the same time.

The organisation said overtime payments along the lines of time and a half paid elsewhere in the public service should be considered.

It also said the absence of a supplemental pension to bridge the gap between when personnel were forced to leave on age grounds and the qualification age for the State pension represented a “ticking retention time-bomb” for the Defence Forces.

RACO said in its submission that Defence Forces personnel “have been excluded from process in successive pay negotiations, denied the right to collective bargaining and presented with agreements as fait accompli”.

It said loyalty and commitment to serve had “attracted much praise but little else from successive governments”.

RACO said the current pay determination system that applied to the Defence Forces was " primarily focused on a model of trade unionism and collective bargaining, with centralised pay awards and agreements negotiated between government and the major unions of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU)".

It said this was a “catch-all model” that “failed to catch all of the public service”.

It said “the worst off in this model are the Defence Forces”.

RACO said it failed to understand how a pay review body for the Defence Forces could “recognise the unique nature of military service, while still remaining within national wage structures”.

“If any such mechanism for pay determination fails to deal with the unique retention issues that the Defence Forces’ experiences in isolation, then the pay review body cannot and will not work. The commission should examine the provision for overtime pay, which is common in other parts of the public service.”