Poor pay sees 2,900 leave Defence Forces early

More than 2,900 members of the Defence Forces took early retirement in the last five years — primarily due to poor pay and conditions — which has led to a significant loss of experience.

Around 1,000 of them had to pay the State a “discharge purchase” of €300 each for the privilege of bailing out.

The bomb squad and Air Corps air traffic controllers are critically short of trained personnel, while the Naval Service has only enough people to run seven of its eight ships.