Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 6 November 2012
839. Deputy Clare Daly asked the Minister for Defence if he will justify the recent announcement to stop the payment of allowances to all new army personnel; his views on the fact that the removal of ten allowance schemes will impact negatively on already low army incomes and create a two tiered system among the rank and file of the defence forces. [48560/12]
View answerAs the Deputy is aware the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform undertook a review of allowances and premium payments across the public sector and proposals were brought to Government for decision. Further to this, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform published the results of this review of allowances and the outcome of the Government decision on its website at www.per.gov.ie.
The types of allowances included for priority elimination include the Ration Allowance for Cadets and the Search & Rescue Allowance for which no payments were made in 2011 or 2012 to date; Entertainment Allowance and Principal Military Appointments Entertainment Allowance which are payable only to certain high ranking Officers; Housekeepers Allowance which is payable to Defence Forces Chaplains to employ a Housekeeper and NCO Account Holders payable to non commissioned Officers.
In the interests of bringing these savings to the paybill forward, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform wrote to my Department instructing management to immediately engage with staff interests with a view to securing their early agreement to the elimination of these Defence Forces allowances. This is currently the subject of discussions between management and the Representative Associations under the Conciliation and Arbitration Scheme for the Defence Forces. The Deputy will appreciate that as discussions under this Scheme are confidential to the parties involved it would not be appropriate for me to comment further on this issue at this juncture.
