Defence Forces
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-07
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Helen McEntee (FG), Meath East

I stress that the claim was received by the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers. The claim is being dealt with under the conciliation and arbitration scheme for members of the Permanent Defence Forces. The Deputy will appreciate the discussions under the conciliation and arbitration scheme are confidential but I look forward to, and hope we can have, that constructive engagement and that conclusion reached as soon as possible.
The Deputy is correct. There is quite a variation from €26,248 to €39,026. I would stress, however, that if you are a cadet coming in, your accommodation is paid for and your food is paid for. Obviously, for a lot of people, that would account for a significant portion of any wage that they would get on a weekly or a monthly basis.
More broadly, we need to make sure we are doing everything that we can to focus on increased recruitment and retention. We have a defence sector working group, which was established to examine the representative associations' proposals. We are working with RACO and PDFORRA proposals under local bargaining. What that is doing is identifying measures to increase recruitment and retention, with a particular emphasis on the Naval Service because with the new national maritime security strategy and with the need for us to do more when it comes to maritime security, our focus on the Naval Service is important and the cadets within that. We are seeing an increase in numbers also.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-07/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:46+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-07