As ever things are more "complicated" than that. The Multinationals clearly play a role in the economy and have spending power that the Public Service can't match, an example being an incident in the last couple of years when one of the multinationals bought out the contracts of an entire class of Navy electricians that were in training. It's of course not helped that for the NS and AC in particularly their only bases are either a) in the heart of the pharma sector in Ireland, or b) in the Capital with all the insane housing pressure that brings.
There is also the larger issue of the nature of the Public Service agreements fixing pay rates across the entire system, and given the DF has only recently been allowed to even attend the pay talks, needless to say the challenges of the Retention crisis has gone ignored by Government and the rest of the PS, along with the post Crash pensions changes as well.
The on base Housing issue goes back to issues the department had with "overstayers" at the Curragh, and in typical fashion of the department the solution was to end all base housing. That is since being overturned with planned upgrades to all the bases, Haulbowline has already seen the old stores units being converted into accommodating, with plans already underway for other major upgrades.
As to what might happen in the future, who knows, the Army is being the Army and seemingly would still prefer the other two services cease to exist, while there's still no urgency in Government to put money on anything.
