Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am interested in what the Minister spoke about with regard to cultural audits into An Garda Síochána and the Prison Service. What he is saying is welcome. In politics, we always react to a scandal. We always do a review after the fact. What was discovered in the Metropolitan Police in London was absolutely shocking with the level of racism and misogyny and the difficulties within that police force. Then we discovered that issues also existed within the Irish Defence Forces, which would not have been a surprise for people like Senator Tom Clonan, who has been dealing with this for 23 years. What I am trying to do here, working with the Minister, is provide a platform or facility for anybody who has experienced cultural issues within these sort of hierarchical arms of the State, which have traditionally been gender imbalanced and can sometimes be the breeding ground for such things.

We do not want a situation in ten or 15 years' time where someone in the Irish Prison Service or An Garda Síochána says something happened to them and there was not a vehicle for them to express the hurt, the pain and the problem they were having.

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