Is rent for €12 a month the ultimate weapon in fighting Defence Forces recruitment crisis?

The Defence Forces recruitment crisis is being felt across all wings — the army, navy, and air corps. The military is losing out to the private sector on many fronts, but at €3 a week for a bed in a barracks, and €40 for food, cheap accommodation may be a weapon to extract the Defence Forces out of its current fix

Cook Corporal Declan Allen serves lunch to Gunner Ipati, Trooper Walsh and Gunner Corbett in the Cook House dining hall at Collins Barracks, Cork. Picture: Larry Cummins

With a starting salary of €37,000, newly qualified military recruits compare quite favourably with other professions when it comes to start-off pay. For example, a graduate nurse in their first year of qualification is paid €28,930. 

Following a new deal made with the Government, which came into effect on October 1, the annual starting salary for a newly qualified primary school teacher is just over €40,000.