Ms Josephine Feehily:

They felt they had to go through the internal process first, that is the one in which they are expressing no confidence. We certainly see the promulgation of the fact that within the existing framework, without changing anything, there is a direct access for a member’s complaint to the ombudsman as being something that is really important to communicate right throughout the Defence Forces. Whether that will result in more complaints or fewer remains to be seen. There might be a cultural dimension to that. Certainly, the same thought occurred to us; we tested it and we found people saying “We can’t do that”, but they can.