Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 10 July 2025

Committee on Defence and National Security

General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed)

2:00 am

Mr. Martin Ryan:

To add to that, thankfully, the Ward report addressed, and made some recommendations that we fed into on, the attendance of officers at court in the future. First and foremost, the requirement to wear a uniform going to court was always probably drawing unnecessary attention and that was a concern. That has been flagged in the report and it has been recommended that would no longer continue. There is the practice then as well of having to take the stand. A person was actually required to take the stand, and that was to give the conduct rating of the Defence Forces member who was facing the court on the day. By the very nature of giving what the conduct rating is and what it was at their last conduct rating, say, in their last annual appraisal report, that is what led to the speculation that we are defending someone. Again, it has been recommended that that practice would no longer continue. The function now is not about that. The reporting record of the court of the day is what is required. It is not actually the report that the officer used to give when he or she was attending. That should be the report of fact. We look forward to hopefully seeing that implemented and more recommendations from the Ward report, which might avoid that scenario that was very unfortunate for one of our members last year having to face such criticism publicly.

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