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GE2024Working Time DirectiveLABOUR HAS PROMISED to fully implement the Working Time Directive within the Irish Defence Forces, so that personnel are fairly compensated for working overtime, if elected into government.
The promise was included in the Labour party’s plan to ‘strengthen’ the Defence Forces, which includes a vow to increase the force by 2,000 people, establish an independent pay and pension review panel and protect Irish neutrality.
Currently, the government has not fully implemented the EU’s Working Time Directive that outlines that any worker who is on the clock outside of rosters hours must be fairly compensated for members of the Defence Forces.
It also states that workers cannot work more than 48 hours in a week along with other measures to validate their employment rights such as being paid for overtime and ensuring leaders document a shortfall in numbers.
The issue has plagued the Defence Forces for years and military representative organisations have blamed the issue of the Department of Defence’s failure to adequately record the working hours of its members.
The Journal previously reported that Defence Forces’ representative organisations have said the failure to implement the directive is moving the organisation in the “wrong direction” and leading to a drop in personnel.
While there are plans to begin implementing the directive, organisations such as Representative Association of Commissioned Officers (RACO) believe the rollout has not come quick enough.
Labour’s defence spokesperson, senator Mark Wall, today said he agrees that the roll out has been too slow and said that introducing the directive would improve members’ work-life balance and lead to new members, especially female applicants, joining the force.
“Labour will provide for overtime when working outside normal hours and time off in lieu,” Wall said today, adding that incentives are needed in the Force, through increasing military spending, to attract new members.
RACO addressed this issue during its most-recent annual conference in Co Carlow last month. The organisation said that the failure to introduce such measures has significantly impacted morale within the force in recent years.
Lieutenant Colonel Conor King, the General Secretary of RACO, has said that he believes the political will to introduce the directive is there, but clerical issues within the Department of Defence is what is hampering progress.
Wall, a general election candidate for Kildare South, also outlined plans to renovate existing properties on the Curragh Defence Force basecamp to house members and their families.
He also said that the Department of Defence would establish relationships with Approved Housing Bodies to develop non-essential sites owned by the Defence Forces to develop housing on that land with the Labour Party in government.
“We need to secure decent pay and conditions for members and deliver infrastructure to make us less reliant on other countries,” Wall said.
With reporting by Niall O’Connor
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There’s no promise Labour will not make to anyone in order to get back into government. Hopefully people see through them for what they are.
@Matt D: and SF with identity cards for EU citizens. That’s really a bright idea. I’d actually vote for Lab over SF. That’s how bad it’s got.
@Alan: you disagree that immigrants coming here should be registered? As proposed by SF. Continue with FG’s non-registration then. FG’s immigration policies are chaotic as we can all see.
@Alan: So we shouldn’t have a record of who’s coming into Ireland? I suppose the Blue-Shirts wpuld be in full support if fascists entering Ireland to protest, after all, hasn’t Harris handed them the hand of friendship, once a blue-shirt always a blue-shirt.
@Matt D: They all make promises before an election, promises that are rarely kept. In the build up to the 2020 General Election Fianna Fail’s Micky Martin during a TV interview lambasted Fine Gael for letting down the people of Ireland especially in relation to housing and a few weeks later he went into coalition with them, two-faced or what eh?
The horrible part for us as people is that despite Martin’s criticism of FG’s housing policies the housing situation has worsened along with homelessness especially in the last two years with FF’s housing minister failing miserably in his office as figures keep going up and up and up. FF and FG together have ensured that for most of us our children will never afford to own a home.
@Matt D: why don’t we hold fg to the sane regard or did people forget the big party in that coalition
@Brian D’Arcy: it’s the dog whistling to racists I object to. Sf are f…d and they know it. A pathetic attempt to garner votes
@F1rYnpWc: EU cotizens shouldn’t require registration. They have a right to be here. Third country nationals – immigrants coming here to work or study on visas are already registered. Asylum seekers are registered and fingerprinted. That is as it should be. The SF policy is ridiculous.
@Alan: identity cards are used by most European countries to avoid carrying passports, it was a Hungarian work college infromed me of such, as he passport has less than 3 months left and he needed to travel home. ID card covered him
@James Brennan: sf are simply signaling to racists. I’m not disputing your point. I’m just highlighting what sf are at.
@Alan: not really as the government pushed the public service card on us, that was a tester for ID cards, but the backlash they got over the oublic service card, led them to shelf the ID card, the ID card is an EU system that they want in all EU member states,
Labour and Greens had your chance in govt and didn’t stand by what you promised. FG doesn’t stand by what they promised (usc and scoliosis). I’ll be voting SF/Inds/small parties/SocDems. We need to stop the FG sell-off of our homeownership to foreign funds.
@F1rYnpWc: Change is definitely needed, but Holly is greener and woker than if you crossed Eamon Ryan with Greta Thunberg and crossbred the offspring with a sheet of styrofoam.
@Finian McG: so vote Independent/Nationalist to keep Ireland Irish and leave the woke nonsense to the Yanks!
When India and China and South America and Africa and Middle East (most of world population) get their acts together, then we can talk about the climate
@F1rYnpWc: I have Trollfiles muted. It just shows a blank space where they commented. Did I catch another troll? They’re best muted. Have a good day all.
@F1rYnpWc: good girl yourself!!!
@Finian McG: I have to admit I got a mental picture and a good chuckle from that.
@F1rYnpWc: you might as well vote ffg as what you are suggesting would work out the same, look at donnelly for example voted in as an indo within a couple of weeks joined ff and the gravy train….
what’s the point of this, they will at best be the junior junior partner in Government and we know their record in Government is to get in and then abandon all their principles and policies, one thing for sure they won’t risk their place at the trough for the soldiers or their families
@Gerry Ryan: are ffg any different?
This promise is for a limited 2-week period only. Normal lip service politics resumes when ye vote us back in.
Aodhán says hi from Brussels, loves it there, but is a little bit afraid of that nasty waysist Mr. Orban from Hungary. XXX, melted wellie.
LIEBOUR not a chance
@Bertie: All the other party’s promising heaven as well. Only we have to build it ourself and pay for it of course. They only take the credit’s.
@hans vos: that’s true. FG campaigned to abolish the USC in 2016. It’s 2024, they’ve been in govt ever since and we still have USC. Difference is, labour voters had principles and abandoned them, FG voters can be lied to and they will go back like an abused dog.
I’d rather see my child spend their life on the dole than sign up for the Irish defence forces. Slave wages, any sort of progression whatsoever is based on who you know. A miserable existence.
They will not need the armed forces for protection they are non existent
I’d rather watch my mother take a bath.
What on the abatement issue
The Labour manifesto will be revealed tomorrow.
What really interests me is whether the new ‘get tough” SF and FG immigration policies, where the emphasis is on enforcement and deportation rather than integration, are compatible with that of the Labour Party, or whether the parties which it will have to compromise with if it is to get back into government are on the wrong side of Labour’s red lines.
have your say