Officers warn Defence Forces decline 'becoming irreversible'

The current trained strength of the Defence Forces has fallen to around 8,200.

The country's military officers are “undervalued and overstretched” and leaving the Defence Forces “at an unsustainable rate” for better-paid jobs elsewhere.

That is according to Commandant Conor King, general secretary of the officers' representative association, Raco, who told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence: “It's been demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that we (the Defence Forces) cannot hope to recruit our way out of this retention crisis.”