Strong Defence Force campaign leads to growth in female recruits

New figures show a jump in female Defence Force applicants following a successful recruitment initiative.

Unlike previous efforts, the 2017 campaign has a strong digital and social media presence, with half its €360,000 budget being spent on content creation alone.

Much of the content was designed to attract 'sporty' women as part of the Governments' plan to double female participation in the army, which currently stands at six per cent.

The strategy resulted in a total of 13,854 applications – 11.5 per cent of which came from female candidates.

Speaking about the figures, a spokeswoman for the Defence Forces said yesterday that “the level of applicants met and exceeded the Defence Forces applicant targets for 2017”.

20 of the 524 females who applied for Cadetships were successful recruited while 52 of the 1,032 females applying for General Service Recruitment have been inducted so far.

29 females are said to have applied for Air Corps Apprenticeships, though none were successful.