Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 18 September 2025
74. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence the estimated cost of funding the full implementation of the Working Time Directive, welfare provisions; and the way in which he intends to address this. [49301/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs the Deputy will be aware the Working Time Directive was implemented in January 2025 across the Defence Forces and serving members now enjoy its protections, subject to certain exemptions. In addition, a wide range of protections are also in place, specifically in regard to recreation and welfare facilities, deemed necessary and approved by military authorities, where personnel are on duty for an out of scope activity or are on-call in barracks with respect to such activity.
Such provisions are funded from central funds. This is in addition to gym and training equipment, approved by Military Authorities, which will also be sourced from central funds.
Any funding requests from the military authorities beyond existing resources, for approved measures, are to be sought in line with normal estimates process.
The implementation of the Organisation of Working Time Act provisions remains a work in progress with many of the welfare measures at various stages of approval/ implementation, thus making it difficult at this stage, to give an accurate estimate of the full implementation costs.
That said, the military authorities have advised, that concerning one of the welfare protections in place, namely the provision of one home reunion flight to Ireland, for personnel on a 6 month deployment, in circumstances where it is determined by the military authorities that annual leave cannot be taken in the mission area due to the security environment assessment, the cost to date is approximately €118k. In addition, the year-one cost for the implementation of a modern time and attendance management IT system to support implementation of the WTD is expected to be in the region of €1,100,000.
