Almost 40% of Naval Service crew ineligible for €10k loyalty bonus

Recruits with less than three years' experience are also poorest paid . File picture.

Almost 40% of Naval Service crew are currently ineligible to claim a special loyalty bonus of €10,000 for signing up to sea patrols because they have less than three years' experience.

They are also the poorest paid in the Naval Service and fears have been expressed by military sources that this will create a two-tier navy, which could lead to resentment and potentially damage future recruitment.

The fact that 40% of personnel have less than three years' service also highlights a lack of experience in the ranks of the Naval Service, with a large volume of new recruits taking the place of highly-experienced personnel who have left in recent years for better pay and conditions in the private sector.

Emergency measures being introduced by Minister for Defence, Simon Coveney, to address the personnel crisis include a €10,000 loyalty bonus known as the 'Sea-Going Service Commitment Scheme' — similar to one brought out a few years ago to retain Air Corps pilots.

It's for Naval Service personnel who agree to sign up to do two-years of sea patrols, but is not open to those with less than three years' experience, as they are not considered to be fully trained.

'Direct entry' candidates

Sources have revealed they also have concerns over another measure Mr Coveney is planning to introduce to attract 'direct entry' candidates into the service from the private sector.

He wants to offer better wages and seniority in rank than currently offered at present in the Naval Service for people who are highly-qualified in the private sector and who can fill critical roles where the navy is short at present.

These include experienced engine room fitters, hull fitters, electricians, radar, and radio technicians and marine engineering officers which Mr Coveney hopes to attract from the private maritime sector.

They would also be excluded because of the three-year rule if this is not amended.

While both representative associations — RACO for the officers and PDForra for enlisted personnel — have welcomed Mr Coveney's initiatives to bolster manning levels in the crisis-hit Naval Service, they are expected to highlight a number of issues when they respond in writing to him on November 4.

Military sources have asked if crew members are forced to take a few days off for compassionate reasons, or if they get pregnant, will they get paid if they are short of the prescribed 240 days of sea patrols they have to undertake in the two-year period.

Four payment plan

It is proposed it will be paid in four six-monthly tranches of €2,500.

In addition, there are concerns that crews may fall short of the requisite number of patrol days if their ships are tied up because they can't go to sea in the absence of critical crew members, such as the ones Mr Coveney wants to attract with enhanced 'direct entry' criteria.

A number of ships have recently lost patrol days at sea because specialist crews were unavailable to join them on sea-going missions.

It has been suggested in some quarters that it would have been fairer if the special Patrol Duty Allowance (PDA) for Naval Service personnel had been increased. The allowance is an average €56 per day at sea. It's to compensate personnel for being away from their families for long periods and for enduring pretty hard conditions.

Unlike the Sea-Going Service Commitment Scheme, the PDA is paid to everybody, and not just those with three-plus years of experience.