The head of the Defence Forces has blamed lower pay and competition from the commercial sector for the crisis in military air traffic controllers.
Defence Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Rossa Mulcahy told an Oireachtas Committee that while there had been uplift in the remuneration package for personnel in recent years, a disparity remains between the pay rates of highly-specialised military personnel and their civilian equivalents.
"This disparity makes it extremely difficult to retain the services of such personnel, including trained ATS personnel. These are not excuses. This is the reality of the environment the Defence Forces and indeed the wider public sector are operating in," he said.
Mr Mulcahy said several positive measures were under way to address the issue, including the extension of the Pilot Service Commitment Scheme to qualified personnel, agreement to offer commission-from-the-ranks for all qualified controllers, the introduction of a panel of qualified civilian controllers into a First Line Reserve and the introduction of a Direct Entry scheme for qualified civilian controllers.
It emerged last month that air traffic control at Baldonnel airport was moving to five days per week due to personnel shortages.
Baldonnel Air Corps manages military helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft, as well as garda aircraft.
Two weeks ago, Minister for Defence Simon Harris and the Government signed off on a bonus scheme to incentivise specialists to stay in the air corps.
This involved the extension of the service commitment scheme to air traffic control personnel, including annual bonus payments.
Secretary General of the Department of Defence Ms Jacqui McCrum said the issue of staff being poached by the commercial sector was being felt across several services.
"We invest hugely in our Defence Forces and they are very highly skilled and we are faced with that issue in a number of other areas. It is something that we will be looking at," she said.
She added the commitment scheme meant that the pay bands for air traffic controllers would go from €58,000-126,000 to €85,000-140,000 with terms and conditions attached.
Senator Gerard Craughwell said the department was aware in 2017 that there was a problem with air traffic controllers and in 2021, a working group identified that a crisis was coming. He asked whether the then minister was advised of the impending crisis back in 2021.
Ms McCrum said the report was not sent to the minister as there was no crisis at the time, and in 2021, ATC numbers went up.
She added that the internal report was not published but she said many of its actions were subsumed into the Commission on Defence Forces report which was published in February 2022.
The Secretary General said specific actions were taken on the cadet entry scheme and the commissioning from the ranks.
On the commission report, she said that 43 of 130 recommendations have been completed, while the others were under way.
A revised implementation plan will be published by the Minister for Defence soon and it is hoped all actions will be completed by 2028.
