Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I hope to meet with the Women of Honour group again and I will do so. At the last meeting, we circulated draft terms of reference for a statutory inquiry. It was quite an amicable meeting and I was a bit surprised by the subsequent press statement. The press comments have tended to be very adversarial with regard to the actions that the Defence Forces and I are taking. We are doing this in the best interests of getting accountability, having full transparency and holding a comprehensive statutory inquiry. We circulated draft terms of reference for people to work on so that various groups, including the Women of Honour, could come back to us with amendments and suggestions. We had a discussion on both the scope of such an inquiry and whether it would be a public inquiry in the tribunal of inquiry format or a commission of inquiry. We have to bear in mind all of those who may want to come forward and what is the best model for them. We did that very openly at the meeting with all of the groups. We are waiting for responses from the various groups, the other groups represented being Men and Women of Honour, RACO, PDFORRA and the Defence Women's Network within the Defence Forces.

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