ONE IN FOUR of Irish military officers have said that they are planning to leave the Irish Defence Forces in the next five years, a study has found. 

Launched today at the annual conference of the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers (RACO) the climate survey paints a picture of a workforce struggling to cope as their colleagues leave and workloads increase.

Respondents to the survey, conducted by RACO, revealed that they are forced to do the three and four jobs on top of their appointed roles. 

More than 70% of officers hold more than one appointment, with 38.9% of these extra jobs held on an unofficial basis.

Irish military personnel, including officers, do not have the right to industrial action – the survey found that 35.5% now want that right, while 18.5% were unsure. 

RACO’s 210 page study said that this is causing significant risks of burn out and is leading to mistakes and critical issues being overlooked, not due to any fault of the individual but as a result of systemic issues within the organisation.

“It also places immense stress on officers, who are going above and beyond by working additional hours to fulfill their responsibilities. Over time, this strain affects their well-being and significantly impacts their family life,” the report found. 

Commentary in the report warned of the dangers of operating weapons due to the lack of adequate oversight and sheer tiredness.

The worrying findings also stated that a “significant issue” in survey responses from serving military personnel was that the present “chain of command within the Defence Forces was dysfunctional” due to a lack of personnel and frequent changes of personnel.

“This may also be why senior leadership within the organisation is felt to be so out of touch – they literally are not receiving the message, or at least not in time to make a difference,” the survey states. 

Such is the dysfunction in the ranks that respondents said there is a shortfall in how officers are being guided and developed to take on the heavier workload.

“This is putting additional pressures on young officers with little experience and little oversight, creating a void of governance which can lead to unnecessary stress and errors, due to a lack of mentorship at all levels,” he said. 

A stock image of Irish Army officers. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

No surprise

Lieutenant Colonel Conor King who is RACO General Secretary, said RACO decided to undertake the survey as the last such document done by the Defence Forces was in 2016.

It is understood a study is planned by the Declan Carville, the strategic head of Human Resources in the military. RACO has offered their climate survey to Carville to use it as a benchmark for future research.

“It is not surprising to hear the results of the survey because of the deterioration in service conditions over the last number of years. 

“The reasons that are causing this content is the increased frequency of double and treble jobbing in units, the reduced staffing levels in units and, since 2013, the complete absence of a viable pension which was essentially the set of gold handcuffs that kept members in the career for a long time. 

“For those reasons the results are not a surprise,” he said. 

Commandant Martin Ryan, RACO President, said that people do not see a financially viable future in the Defence Forces and a tiredness because of the nature of the work they are doing. 

Ryan believes that there is a lack of understanding at senior level within the organisation. 

“The can do approach we have is one of our greatest downfalls. It is to be heralded and it is a great quality to have except when it is being abused.

“It is in our nature and everyone in this room [of delegates] picks up the second job, puts their shoulder to the wheel and doesn’t give out about it.

“They don’t realise the effect it is having on them because of the burnout and the stress – officers are very proud people and don’t admit to doing a bad job, but you must be doing a bad job if you are doing three of them,” he said.  

Ryan added that it feeds into the frustrations causing people to leave the organisation: “We should be treating our time like we treat money and bullets in the organisation – it is not infinite.” 

A Commandant speaking from the room of delegates, who did not wish to be identified, said that he had been doing four jobs.  

“I’ll give you an example on a unit, I was quadruple jobbing,” he said. 

“There were things that I didn’t do that should have been done better but there was not enough hours in the day. I took work home but there were still things missed.

“It is not fair to put that on people, we joined to do a job right and you are admitting that you are doing 25% of what you could do for that job. It is a bad practice that we accepted and that we are muddling through now – it shouldn’t be the way it is,” he said. 

The conference continues tomorrow with speeches from the Minister for Defence Tánaiste Micheál Martin and Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces Lt General Sean Clancy.