Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 15 October 2024
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence
Report of the Commission on the Defence Forces: Engagement with Chair of Implementation Oversight Group
3:10 pm
Ms Julie Sinnamon:
Numerous reports over the years have indicated that there has been progress, and we look back and ask whether it was the level of progress that might have been believed to be the case. We will know that the cultural transformation has happened when we talk directly to people. Steps are being taken within the Defence Forces in the form of focus groups with staff to understand the issues. Client surveys are one recommendation in the Report of the Commission on the Defence Forces that is being progressed, and they are about giving direct feedback. It will be only when people give detail of their lived experience and how it is different from that of others, given no shortage of initiatives has been introduced, that we will know whether, over a period, they are working and what has changed. That information will come directly from staff who are able to report. Certainly, from a number of the interactions we have had to date, the staff have said their lived experience is not different. There is a recognition that many initiatives have been implemented. Cultural change in any organisation, irrespective of the nature of it, takes a long time. It is that direct contact with staff that will let us know when staff are saying it is different. If there is a baseline culture survey and annual surveys thereafter, they will show what people are anonymously reporting as their lived experience.
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