Hot Press has received a detailed response, to a series of questions asked of the Department of Defence in relation to criticisms made to the magazine by a former member of the Air Corps and the Navy recently. This response arrived after the original print deadline had passed. It addresses a number of the concerns highlighted by our source, who left service in early 2017, primarily due to inadequate pay.

We asked how the Defence Forces could incentivise recruited personnel to remain active as service members if they felt payment was inadequate? Press and Information Officer Ashling Hewson supplied all of the following responses.

"The long term trend is that 20% of recruits do not complete basic training and this is consistent with the current trend. The reasons why recruits decide not to remain in the Defence Forces vary and in many instances it is because they decide that a military career is not for them.