Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2023-05-04 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central The military authorities have advised that Defence Force Regulation (DFR) A9 sets out the qualifying criteria required to be awarded Defence Forces Medals. The award of Service Medals for both Officers and Non Commissioned Officers and Privates is as follows: 1. DFR A9 Paragraph 4a provides that the qualifying service for the award of the Service Medal to an officer shall be satisfactory and continuous service in the Permanent Force for a period of 5,475 days or the aggregate of satisfactory and continuous service in the Permanent Force and the Reserve of Officers (First Line) for a period of 5,475 days (15yrs). 2. DFR A9 Paragraph 5a provides that the qualifying service for the award of the Service Medal to a non-commissioned officer or Private shall be satisfactory and continuous service in the Permanent Force for a period of 3,650 days, or the aggregate of satisfactory and continuous service in the Permanent Force and the Reserve of Men (First Line) for a period of 3,650 days (10 yrs). I say all that because it gets dismissed in the House. It is mistakenly believed that all of this did not happen or there was no intervention by the Government. There is. The windfall is there. Fundamentally, quite a range of factors are responsible for the inflationary cycle. Food prices went up by approximately 13% in March. We acknowledge that, but----- --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-05-04/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:51+00:00 Sitting date: 2023-05-04