Fianna Faíl says it's in favour of establishing an independent pay commission for the Defence Forces and wants to restore an Army brigade which was disbanded in 2012.

While pay and conditions will dominate PDForra’s annual conference, so too will overburdening stress within the ranks of the Defence Forces caused by manpower shortages.

Junior Defence Minister Paul Kehoe has refused to rule out using a veto to prevent the association representing enlisted personnel, PDForra, from becoming affiliated to ICTU.

Officers are sleeping in barracks in rooms where there are rat and mice droppings and when they can't avail of limited living-in accommodation they're forced to travel long distances to postings or pay exorbitant rents.

The association representing over 1,000 Defence Forces officers claims members are leaving because they are being sought out by other areas of the public sector.

Des Bishop got to grips with a Lamborghini Huracan today, along with five-year-old Harrison Clark, five-year-old Belle Walshe and Cannonball founder Alan Bannon to announce that the Irish Cancer Society will be the official charity partner for Cannonball 2019.

The joint Oireachtas committee on foreign affairs and defence has been urged to visit Naval Service headquarters to investigate for itself how bad manpower levels are.

The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence has been urged to visit Naval Service headquarters to investigate for itself how bad manpower levels are.

A pay review is to be undertaken in the next three months aimed at addressing the exodus of highly trained engineers and technicians in the Defence Forces, especially in the Naval Service.

The Government has been accused of running down the Defence Forces to such an extent that if there was a major security crisis, the country has been left “woefully unprepared, dramatically undefended, and shamefully exposed.”

Retired Lieut Col Dan Harvey said the Defence Forces is "broken" and "in crisis" with "morale at an all-time low," because they are "overlooked and undervalued, overworked, underpaid, over-stretched and undermanned."

The four cases claiming breach of the Working Time Directive (WTD) within the Defence Forces have been adjourned after the Department of Defence offered to enter into mediation talks with the organisation taking them.

A charity is to set up a number of support centres to help former soldiers, sailors and aircrews.

An independent review into the murder of one Irish soldier and the disappearance of another in south Lebanon in 1981 has identified a series of failings and shortcomings in the Defence Forces operation.

A row over pay has overshadowed the largest commissioning of officers in the Defence Forces’ history.

Plugging gaps with limited resources could lead to deaths in the Defence Forces and a worst-case scenario, as the number of officers quitting continues to rise.

Plugging gaps with limited resources could lead to deaths in the Defence Forces and a worst-case scenario, as the number of officers quitting continues to rise.

Minister of state Paul Keogh has announced measures which he hopes will stem an exodus of personnel from the Defence Forces.

Entrepreneurs and business owners in the marine research sector have sharply criticised the decision of UCC and Cork Institute of Technology to withdraw funding and staffing from the Irish Maritime and Energy Research Cluster in Ringaskiddy.

The stepfather of a soldier who died after falling ill at his army barracks told his funeral yesterday he was very proud when the late Daniel Donougher called him Dad for the first time.

"Every week we should be doing 150 minutes of physical activity. That’s the same number of people who get a cancer diagnosis in Ireland every day".

A whistleblower has criticised the Government’s handling of allegations of health and safety management in the Air Corps, claiming that staff exposure to toxic chemicals has caused the deaths and chronic illnesses suffered by members and their families.

People-smugglers are overloading refugees in inflatable dinghies that are so poorly manufactured they’ve no hope of making their destination.

Crosshaven will be thronged with thousands of people over the next few days as sailing events for Volvo Cork Week kick off surrounded by onshore entertainment and with a special flypast by the air corps.

As a piper played a lament, sheets of rain shrouded the tears of relatives yesterday in the yard of the Old Cork Prison where the 1916 rebel Thomas Kent was executed 100 years ago.

Colourful silage fields will spread the message of support for children’s hospitals and raising breast cancer awareness this summer.

Farming families across the country are set to back Dairygold’s ‘Wrap It Pink’ campaign, with the Irish Cancer Society.

Public condemnation of the Irish Cancer Society for scrapping a financial hardship scheme for cancer patients led Health Minister Leo Varadkar to urge people to continue supporting the charity.

It was not meant to be a recruiting drive but it was little wonder the sight of both the defence minister and chief of staff of the Defence Forces led to scores of national schoolchildren pledging to join up when age permits.

One in 10 officers has resigned from the Defence Forces in the past two years after becoming disillusioned with the job.

Proud families gathered on the quayside yesterday to welcome home the crew of LÉ Niamh, who apart from rescuing migrants, assisted in the birth of one and the double resuscitation of an infant who nearly drowned.

That old phrase ‘go fly a kite’ could take on an entirely new meaning when it comes to future energy efficiency.

As the morning sunshine slides across a memorial tomorrow morning in West Cork, a shadow on a sundial will mark the moment a jumbo jet was blasted out off the sky off the south-west coast.

Thousands of people attempting to donate to the global “No make-up selfie” cancer campaign have inadvertently either given their money to a children’s charity — or tried to adopt a polar bear.