Outsourcing of instructor jobs may breach public service agreement, says military body

General Secretary of PDFORRA Gerard Guinan said: 'The message being sent out is that running services into the ground is the only manner by which you will receive funding. File picture: Paul Mealey

Concerns have been raised that further roles within the Defence Forces are being outsourced at a cost to the taxpayer with claims that the money would be better spent retaining personnel.

The exodus of highly skilled personnel for better pay and conditions in the private sector has significantly increased the cost of paying private contractors to fill the gaps.

It first started a number of years ago with the outsourcing of Air Corps maintenance to an Italian company and escalated more recently with a €14.3m contract to a Finnish company for maintaining navy ships. Only one ship is currently on patrol.

Now it has emerged that a €1.6m contract has been awarded to employ four instructors to the Defence Forces’ Ordinance School, much to the dismay of PDForra the representative association for enlisted personnel. Again, this is due to specialists exiting the military.

“We sincerely believe that the money could have been better spent by retaining personnel. Presently PDForra is preparing for adjudication for Ordnance Artificers (engineers) where the total value of the claim to increase the salary of members of the Ordnance Corp is just short of €180,000 per year for approximately 100 personnel. 

"Therefore, you can see that the value of the contract for one year for four instructors would pay for eight to nine years for all the artificers in service,” PDForra general secretary Gerard Guinan said.

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He said it seems foolhardy to the association as for years members of the Ordnance School sought modest increases and "ended up discharging in despair" at the lack of movement on pay only for some of them to come back on increased salaries, better workers’ rights (the Working Time Directive applies to them) and less onerous conditions of service such as no weekend duties.

“The message being sent out is that running services into the ground is the only manner by which you will receive funding. Needless to say, in a uniformed service where morale is central to the functioning of the organisation practices such as this destroy unit cohesion, as contract workers are now working back alongside their former colleagues but with better conditions,” Mr Guinan said.

He confirmed that PDForra had not been consulted prior to the commencement of the contract.

“If we were we would have told the Department of Defence of how disruptive it would be. 

Additionally, from our perspective, it potentially constitutes a breach of Public Service Agreements where outsourcing was supposed to be considered only after other measures had been considered first. 

"From our perspective, not all measures were considered including the value for money aspect of providing proper allowances to our members versus the costs of a civilian contract,” Mr Guinan said.

A spokesman for the Department of Defence said the contract in question relates to the provision of independent qualified specialist instructors to provide technical training support to the Ordnance Corps of the Defence Forces.

“This includes the delivery of instruction to students of the Trainee Technician Scheme and other related courses as required. The contract was signed on December 15, 2023, with a start date of February 6, 2024. 

"Following a favourable mid-term view by the Ordnance School, it is intended to seek approval for contract extensions in the coming months, as provided for in the contract,” the spokesman added.