A Former army officer of almost 13 years has said that the Defence Forces are “Ireland’s ultimate insurance policy” and that poor conditions related to pay and workload are what’s behind the reduction in the force.
As Gript previously reported, Senator Michael McDowell recently expressed his ‘alarm’ at the ‘collapse’ in numbers.
Irish Mirror journalist Michael O’Toole reported that the Irish Defence Forces have shrunk in number by approximately 5,500 in under a 10 year period.
Speaking to Gript Barry Crushell who served as a member of the Defence Forces before becoming an employment lawyer, described his time in the force as “phenomenal” while saying that he understands why it is struggling with recruitment and retention of personnel.
O’Toole reported that, “Statistics released to Labour Wexford TD Brendan Howlin show that as of the end of May, the Army, Air Corps and Naval Service had just 7,764 staff.”
“That” he said, “is almost 2,000 under the strength it is supposed to be of 9,500 personnel”, meaning that the Irish military force is now “at its smallest since 1980 – when it had just over 8,000 in its ranks.”
Crushell who served overseas in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Western Sahara before retiring as a captain said that his time in the force ‘set him up for life’ giving him the opportunity “to grow, to develop, to be educated, and to learn leadership and soft skills”,
Despite this he says he knew it would not be a suitable long term career because of poor remuneration and logistical issues which he says were caused when the force underwent a “reorganisation” in or around 2012.
He said that working conditions were not conducive to an ability to start and family, to provide, or be present.
Reacting to the number of those who have left ts he said he is “not surprised whatsoever” adding the reorganisation meant that the structure of the force was changed “so that there was a fewer amount of units and brigades,”
He says this “significantly impacted” those who were serving and that his own barracks which had been located in Dublin was transferred to Athlone adding that soldiers who have purchased homes in a specific location can have their post moved 100s of kilometres away and are just ‘expected’ to adapt to the changes.
“What happened was the Defence Forces reorganised in a very significant way that impacted individuals on the ground,” he said, adding that many were left with longer commutes with more and unsocial hours which were uncompensated.
As a result of this he said that many started to “look around and consider their options”.
“More and more of my peers are doing more and more work,” he said, describing unsociable hours and duties including shifts of 24, 48, and 74 hours while soldiers are being asked to volunteer for overseas missions on an increasingly frequent basis.
Crushell described himself as “lucky” saying that he had always planned to exit the organisation at a particular time which coincided with the changes as he had a desire to pursue a career in law, but that many others were not able to escape the impact.
He says that despite the longer commutes and longer working hours there have been ‘no significant pay increases’ and that this is not conducive to family life as soldiers from Donegal may have to travel to Dublin ‘over a long weekend’ where travel expenses are not covered.
“Soldiers with families were living in the barracks during the week in order to save money,” he said, adding that he had been approached by corporals who said they could not afford to finance their increased commutes.
“Generally speaking a lot of individuals who were put in these situations over the last 10 years have just looked around and saw that they were productive, hardworking, individuals loyal to their employer, that they have really good soft skills, excellent education, training and qualifications and realised that those skills were very sought after and lucrative elsewhere,” he said.
While he says that most individuals who join the Defence Forces “never do it for money” that most who leave do so because of money.
“When you’re 17, 18, 19, 20 years of age, you can afford to live on the salary that the Defence Forces is paying,” he said adding that, “most serving personnel love their job” and “love serving their country” but cannot afford to continue.
He says many leave “with considerable reluctance” in order to pursue a job which they “enjoy less but pays better,”
Crushell said that he has often been stricken by the lack of knowledge among the general public on what the Defence Forces do on a daily basis.
“Our defence force is the ultimate insurance policy that this country has,” he said adding that domestically when there are challenges faced by the State “be they social, political or natural disasters the defence forces has always stepped in,”
He highlighted the important role of border security saying, “Most people of a certain age can remember the Defence Forces on the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland making sure the the security of the state was maintained,”
“It’s manpower that the state can use at any given moment,” he said adding that “the fact that 5,000 people have left in the space of almost 10 years represents a significant deterioration in the ability of the state to defend itself internally from any security threat,” and to respond to emergency situations.
“That capacity has now been severely compromised,” he said, adding that when he resigned the force was 12,500 strong.
“It’s inconceivable that any organisation could be asked to do the same [amount of work] with so little people,”
Addressing what the state could do to help people stay he said that the force is failing to provide basic labour protections for staff as it is “specifically excluded from the overwhelming majority if employment law legislation that protects workers’ rights,
Crushell said that most people expect to be able to predict how much work is expected of them and to be compensated when this is exceeded but that this is not happening for soldiers.
“If the state were to consider implementing the same safeguards for members of the Defence Forces that other workers have it would go a long way to addressing many of the issues,” he said.
Members of the Defence Forces “don’t have a real voice” and are “not in a position to take industrial action” while being “probably the most loyal employees in the state,” he said adding, “My sense is that this loyalty is very often taken for granted,”
Describing a “schism” between members of the force, their representative bodies, and the Dept. of Defence, Crushell said that many military personnel do not believe that the Department of Defence has their interests at heart.