Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin and, in particular, Deputy Clarke for tabling the motion, which I have no difficulty in supporting. It is disappointing that the Government has tabled an amendment. I thought sense would have prevailed and that we would make language mean something in that we heard what the Women of Honour whom I met last week told us. I thank Deputy Tóibín for organising that. We heard them, we believed them, and then we proceeded to ignore them. That is what we are doing here.

In the first instance I want to deal with something Deputy Berry said. He is still in the Chamber. He talked about the progress that was made in the 2000s. I have to take issue with him on that unless he can show me the evidence. I would like to know what analysis exists on the number of men and women who left the Defence Forces in that time due to sexual harassment, assault or a prevailing culture of fear of reprisals. It is a legitimate question to ask. What analysis has been done on the downgrading of accusations of serious sexual assault to minor breaches of discipline under a particular section of the Defence Acts? How many persons have had such minor charges laid against them after being accused of serious assault and have then been transferred or relocated? These are essential questions if we are to take at face value what the Deputy said.

I am not personalising this in respect of the Deputy. It is just that he highlighted this. When he said, and he is correct, that there has been a decline, what he is saying really if he looks at the facts is that there has been a decline in the number of investigations. In the 1980s, there were 54; in the 1990s, 35; in the 2000s, 20; and in the 2010s, 17. The number of investigations has reduced but we have to ask why. Were the women or, indeed, men afraid of reprisals? What are the reasons? What analysis has been done? It is a dangerous conclusion to come to in light of the ongoing reports of further allegations against women. I take issue with that completely. I would also like the Minister of State for clarification. I think some of those figures came from an article in the Sunday Independentor Irish Independenttowards the end of last year, based on a report that was given to the Minister. Are any of the Ministers of State present aware of that? Have they the report to hand? Could they enlighten me? Is that where all of these figures have been set out? What conclusions were drawn from them? Were they the conclusions Deputy Berry is entitled to draw or are there other conclusions that should be drawn from them if we are going to learn?

I have the greatest of respect for the judge. She is an independent, female judge with lots of experience and she has shown her mettle. If she can rise above the pathetic terms of reference, fair play to her. Fair play to her if she can produce a report within the time allowed, which seems to change depending on which Minister is talking - a draft one at six months, something else at nine months, something else at 12 months. If that can be done within the terms of reference I will take my hat off and I will be the first to apologise here. We have the three overall aims of the independent review, which I have quoted before and will not quote again. Then we have 13 terms of reference and no powers whatsoever to compel anyone or seek any documentation. I will come back to the Women of Honour; should the men and women decide not to participate who should go forward, the others, if they decide not to, that is it. Goodbye. There is nothing that can be done about that. Term of reference No. 13, at the bottom, finally refers to historical matters, "to advise whether further work is required to examine the issues of an historical nature and to make any recommendations regarding how this might pursued". Of course, that is No. 13. Perhaps the Ministers of State will tell me the recommendations are not ranked but it is interesting that it is coming last. It is interesting that the time is a movable feast.

Most significant and beyond interesting is that the women who had the courage to come forward are not going to participate, which makes the whole inquiry very difficult. That might be an understatement. If they are not going to participate and they are responsible for highlighting all of this, it begs the question as to how it can work. The very terms of reference, if the Ministers of State look at them, state that they are going to examine the policies, practices and procedures on the ground to see if they align with dignity. We know well they do not align with dignity because we have had a whole series of allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault down to rape. Now we are going to look at the policies. We are not going to look at what the women and men have told us about what happened to them. We believe them. The three monkeys come to mind - hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil - but do the evil and have no accountability.

Forgive me for my cynicism. Before I speak, myself and my assistants in my office usually try to look, study and examine the necessary documentation. I have done that. When I look back to see if my cynicism and my questions are justified, going back to Tom Clonan in 2000, I see what happened to that man. His research was discredited. When he stuck to his guns and the discrediting programme did not work, a review was set up which I will come back to. Subsequently Tom Clonan, I understand, said he understood and believed that the changes had occurred, in good faith. Then I realise he had been duped. Maybe that is too strong a word. Maybe his belief that systems could change was not based on reality. My experience in a number of different roles is that institutions do not change. If institutions changed, we would not have needed Katie Hannon's documentary on RTÉ or the women's courage in coming forward. That is what has led to this. To add insult to that, we do not allow them to take part in the discussion on the terms of reference. The Minister of State spoke about having met them on a number of occasions, or the Taoiseach and the Minister, which was very nice. The important thing was to have them engage in the terms of reference, which did not happen.

Let us look back. We have Tom Clonan's research. A number of his findings have been cited in respect of the situation at the time. "Women in combat: The status and roles assigned to female personnel." This featured anonymised interviews with 60 female officers, 59 of whom suffered abuse or discrimination and 12 of whom said they had been sexually assaulted or raped. This also included bullying and sexual harassment including rape and so on. In 2019, Tom Clonan said that he believed the Defence Forces had taken it on board. That was done some time after 2000. Clearly they had not. Following his research in 2002, an independent review panel was set up. There was one external woman on it out of five people. It was set up to review existing policies and procedures. That was 20 years ago; we were reviewing existing policies and procedures and now we are going to set up another independent review to review it.

Following on from that, we had a monitoring committee, which was excellent. The Minister for Defence seems to misunderstand what a monitoring committee does. It produced three reports. On the last occasion in 2014 it made three specific recommendations. No Minister here today has referred to that. The Minister used words to the effect that it did not do its job because the culture had not changed. The culture had not changed because the Ministers over the years had not done their job. Army management had not done its job. The only ones who had done their job were the members of the monitoring committee that highlighted what still needed to be done. What do we do? We abolished it and did not re-establish it, notwithstanding that Mark Mellett wrote to the Minister of State with responsibility for defence at the time, in January 2019, asking for it to be re-established. At that point they were investigating 15 cases of alleged misconduct by personnel in 2019.

I am nearing the end of my time. I am speaking on the basis of having done research and thought about this subject and out of respect for the Women of Honour group, whose members have come forward in this public way to tell of the most horrific abuse. We get a review of policies and procedures to see if they align. I cannot imagine how more insulting it could get. At the very least, I would have expected a detailed speech on the actions to date following on from the various reports, why the independent monitoring committee was not renewed and why the recommendations were not acted on.

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