Ireland’s Department of Public Expenditure says it wants further reviews of allowances paid to hundreds of thousands of staff across the Public Service on top of their basic pay to see if they are still appropriate.
“If not, they should be ended or bought out,” the Department said in a statement.
In recent weeks, the Department has suggested in a submission to the Commission on the Defence Forces that the Commission should look at whether existing pay and remuneration structures for military personnel are “fragmentary, overly-complex or out of date”.
The Department wants to know if there is “scope for consolidation, modernising and streamlining arrangements in a way that is cost-neutral or cost-saving to the exchequer”.
Specifically, it said the range of allowances payable to Defence Forces personnel should be examined “to determine their ongoing purpose and necessity”.
It said the role of incremental salary scale progression and performance management at all Defence Forces’ ranks and levels should be examined and evaluated.
The Department has since expanded its suggestion and said that all allowances paid across the Public Service should be regularly reviewed to assess their continued validity and, where appropriate, discontinued with the assistance of agreed buyout formulae.
When asked about its submission to the Commission, the Department said it would be inappropriate to comment while the Commission’s work was continuing.
It did not reply to questions on whether it had proposed to the Government that an overall review of allowances be conducted.
Separately, the Health Service Executive (HSE), in a submission to the Commission, called for greater links between military and civilian medicine.
HSE suggested that the Army should have the capability to deploy a field hospital and that the existing helicopter emergency air service should become permanent as part of a joint Defence Forces/HSE operation.
Dublin, 28 July 2021
