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

It could be argued though that there were probably oversight structures within the Defence Forces as well over the past 23 years and it may have made that argument as well in order to defend how it was operating. We are on the same page here. We need the Minister to come back to the House in six months to give an update to Members as to what those cultural audits have discovered. We need to be proactive. Far too often, as they say in politics, we react to a scandal, a report, to somebody speaking out - a whistleblower. What if there is somebody currently serving in An Garda Síochána or in the Irish Prison Service who does not feel they have a facility to come forward, who is suffering this type of abuse and who will speak to it being part of a culture and that we could potentially root that out by not waiting for this person to come forward and by having a facility within these two organisations for them to speak to. I am quite sure the vast majority of members of An Garda Síochána and the Irish Prison Service are fine, upstanding individuals but we have to maintain that trust which can often be brittle. I have faith in what the Minister is saying in terms of cultural audits but they probably need to be quite robust to ensure they empower people to speak to their truth.

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