Border duty allowance for 710 soldiers ‘absolute madness’, says Alan Kelly

More than 700 Irish soldiers get millions of euro every year as part of a “border duty allowance”, despite paramilitary activity dwindling and many of the officers living hundreds of miles from Northern Ireland.

The Department of Defence was heavily criticised for the expenditure yesterday after politicians described the legacy costs as “absolute madness”.

Speaking during the latest meeting of the cross-party Dáil public accounts committee, Labour TD Alan Kelly said that figures supplied by the department show €2.8m was spent last year on border duty allowances for 710 soldiers.

The allowance was first implemented during the Troubles as a way to compensate soldiers for the potential additional, and at times dangerous, work involved in being based on the border at that time.

However, the need for the expenditure has reduced dramatically over the past two decades due to the slow but significant removal of paramilitary activity since the peace process began.

Hitting out at the ongoing cost, Mr Kelly said the border duty allowance is not a relevant payment more than two decades on from the first significant Troubles ceasefire and that it should be removed entirely.

“In 2017, why in the name of God are we still paying that? Maybe with Brexit we might need it in the future, but to the general public this seems like madness,” he said.

Responding to the concerns, Department of Defence general secretary Maurice Mr Quinn said the allowance is a legacy matter and cannot be easily removed from soldiers who have been based in the border region.

He said no officer has been added to the border duty allowance list since 2009 and that there are “structures within the Haddington Road agreement to buy out the allowances” from those still in receipt.

However, asked about people who are still receiving the payments, he admitted an unsubstantiated but significant number are now not even based near the border and that their allowances relate to decades-old periods when they were in the region.

“There’s a small number [of soldiers in receipt of the allowances who are based hundreds of miles from the border]. They were working on the border, but we couldn’t just take it back from them,” he said.

Mr Quinn said a number of additional allowances are made available to soldiers who work in potentially increased security environments, including on the border, at official events, and with the Central Bank.

He said the payments are compensation for the potential risk these individuals could be subjected to during their work.