Recently, I met the Wives & Partners of the Defence Forces, WPDF, which was created to give a voice to the men and women of our Defence Forces. Their story is a harrowing one which should be deeply worrying to every Member of the House. Those I met provided me with a compilation of testimonies from wives of personnel in our Army, Naval Service and Air Corps. They are heart-rending. A common theme throughout the testimonies is the inability to make ends meet on a daily basis. One of the testimonies said:

We have no future. We will never own our own house, we will never be able to afford a holiday...to send our children to college. These used to be priorities for us but now all we want is to be able to put food on our kitchen table every night.

There are daily worries right throughout the testimonies about how they will feed their families because "our money is not good enough." Unable to pay electricity and utility bills, some are dependent on moneylenders. Some are worrying about the winter:

I really hope something comes out of this and we as a group can make some changes. It's needed. I don't know how I'm going to cope if it keeps on like this. The constant fear is scary.

Others rely on their parents to bail them out. As I have said, all are filled with anxiety. As one person said, "The Defence Forces has put my family on the breadline and have robbed me of my health and my sanity." Many of these are military families with a proud tradition of service in our Defence Forces and to the nation. They say they have genuine fears about their inability to provide. Every day I hear stories of military families on the bread-line with massive debts and loan sharks at the door. Their pride is ebbing and morale is at an all-time low.

I want to ask the Taoiseach a number of basic questions. Does he accept that morale is at an all-time low in our Defence Forces, that their families are struggling daily to make ends meet and that the State is not treating our Defence Forces personnel with respect and dignity? There are very serious recruitment and retention issues. In this modern era, is it not about time that the Permanent Defence Forces Representative Association, PDFORRA, and the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers, RACO, would have negotiating rights and access to the industrial relations machinery of the State, just as is the case with An Garda Síochána.

I have immense respect for our Defence Forces and for the work they do daily throughout the country. I am particularly proud of the roles they played in the commemorations in 2016 for the centenary celebrations and that they will continue to play over the next ten years. All of us in the House are proud of the important role they play overseas, whether in peacekeeping missions in Lebanon and around the world or the really important search-and-rescue role our Naval Service has played in the Mediterranean in recent times. All public servants have had their pay reduced in the past couple of years, starting when Deputy Micheál Martin's party was in office and continuing under mine. We are now in the process of pay restoration. Pay restoration for public servants, including members of the Defence Forces, began a number of years ago and, subject to the ratification of the Lansdowne Road continuation agreement, which was made only a few weeks ago, it will continue into next year. Salaries are increasing across the Defence Forces and will continue to do so should that deal be ratified. In addition, in recent years we have been reducing the universal social charge which is the other way of improving the take home pay, not just of people who serve in our Defence Forces but people across the economy who pay the universal social charge, USC.

Recruitment to the Defence Forces resumed quite some time ago. It had been stalled previously and has resumed for the Defence Forces. When we advertise for new recruits to the Defence Forces, the number of people applying very considerably exceeds the number of places available. That is very encouraging because it suggests there are lots of people who want to become members of our Defence Forces, notwithstanding the terms and conditions currently in place. I acknowledge that there are some very specialised areas in which there is a particular problem with recruitment but recruiting at entry levels has not been a problem in recent years. In terms of representation, I understand there is a process under way to give RACO and PDFORRA greater access to industrial relations machinery but no decision has been made on that yet.

I do not get any sense from the Taoiseach's reply that he gets it or that he understands the depth to which morale has plummeted in our Defence Forces. I asked the Taoiseach the very basic question if he accepts there are many families struggling to make ends meet on a daily basis and that morale is on the floor. He did not address that particular issue. We all talk about how proud we are and I am proud. These are people who get up very early in the morning on a constant basis on behalf of the nation and who serve with distinction overseas, as the Taoiseach has said. It is meaningless for us to articulate that we are proud of that if we do not have any sense of the hardship and misery that many families are going through in their daily lives. Something has to change beyond the norm. We talk about the Mediterranean and how great it was on "The Late Late Show" and so on but what happened? It took two years to negotiate the €15-a-day allowance. I am told by the spouses that the €13-a-week extra in the public service agreement of recent times has not been paid yet. The allowance for 24-hour duties when they come back from overseas, which is €20 a day, is also an issue. Much can be done.

I thank the Deputy. His time is up.

It can only happen if there is a sense of the real crisis within the forces.

I asked the Taoiseach about representation. It would be an important step forward if members of the Defence Forces had negotiating rights, like everyone else has in the modern era. Will the Taoiseach clarify whether the Government is intent on providing for these rights?

On the bigger picture, I put it to the Taoiseach that an overarching commission is needed to examine the future role of the Defence Forces and provide a pathway to restore to them quality of life and dignity and pride in what they do not only in terms of pay and conditions, but also in respect of the overall environment and quality of life they experience as members of the Defence Forces.

I absolutely accept that very many families not just in the Defence Forces, but across the country, are finding it very hard to make ends meet. I refer in particular to families that have additional costs, whether they are mortgage, rent and child care costs or loans to be repaid. It is absolutely the case that very many families of members of the Defence Forces and well beyond are struggling to make ends meet. The question is what the Government is doing about it. First, wages are rising again and pay restoration is occurring in the public service. It has started already and will continue into next year at a faster pace than had been previously planned if the agreement we have reached with the trade unions is ratified, as I am confident it will be. We reduced personal taxation and the universal social charge last year and will continue to do so, hopefully with the support of the Fianna Fáil, in the next budget and the years ahead. We are also trying to reduce the cost of living for families, for example, by introducing the affordable child care scheme and much better child care subsidies for families who need child care. We introduced rent controls in areas where rents are high - the rent pressure zones - to contain the cost of rent. We reduced medical costs, for example, the prescription fee for elderly people, and provided free general practitioner care for all children under six years. The Defence Forces have a much better arrangement than that when it comes to free medical care but this is an important change for many families. There are also provisions funded out of my former Department, for example, the family income supplement which ensures that anyone who works more than 19 hours per week and has a family is not in poverty because he or she can apply for the family income supplement. Second, we announced only last week a 25% increase in the back to school clothing and footwear allowance which will benefit more than 250,000 children in low income families.

What is the position regarding negotiating rights for members of the Defence Forces?

No decision has been made on that.