I found that my issue was someone committed the file .project and .classpath that had references to Java1.5 as the default JRE.
<classpathentry kind="con" path="org.eclipse.jdt.launching.JRE_CONTAINER/org.eclipse.jdt.internal.debug.ui.launcher.StandardVMType/J2SE-1.5">
<attributes>
<attribute name="owner.project.facets" value="java"/>
</attributes>
</classpathentry>
By closing the project, removing the files, and then re-importing as a Maven project, I was able to properly set the project to use workspace JRE or the relevant jdk without it reverting back to 1.5 . Thus, avoid checking into your SVN the .project and .classpath files
Hope this helps others.