Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Members of our Defence Forces have experienced some of the most egregious treatment and conditions of any workforce in our country’s history. It has been harrowing listening to the stories of the all-too-many members who were victims of a broken system. It was a system of abuse. Imagine how difficult it must have been to live through that trauma. It is for this reason I can act only as a conduit for those who know better but do not have a voice on this floor, namely, those who were failed by our defence institutions and were brave enough to stand up against those failings to ensure they never recurred. Those people represent the very best of us.

The Defence Forces have six core values: respect, loyalty, selflessness, physical courage, moral courage and integrity. It stuck with me yesterday when Ms Yvonne O’Rourke and Ms Diane Byrne of Women of Honour outlined in their briefing how these core values were repeatedly violated and rendered non-existent. In fact, the complete subversion of such ethics is evident across the forces, as shown by their treatment.

The Defence Forces claim these values are the bedrock of the organisation and are central to their effectiveness. It is no wonder, then, that there is a recruitment crisis across all echelons of the military. It is missing its bedrock, which it admits it is ineffective without. "Ineffective" is too soft a word. It is a toxic, malignant and destructive institution. Those involved at the highest level have demonstrated a dereliction of duty that words struggle to describe, no matter how strong or verbose they may be.

The stories of those in the Women of Honour group, the Air Corps Chemical Abuse Survivors group, the Defence Forces Justice Alliance and the Canary Movement paint pictures of lives ruined by an exploitative organisation indifferent to their suffering as they raised it in the moment. If it were not for these groups, and other groups like them, we would never have got to this point, even though, seemingly, we are still only at the beginning. For many, it is too late to undo the horrors they were found to have experienced, but this only provides a greater incentive to ensure such wrongdoing never again occurs in the future.

Echoing the bravery of these groups, I welcome the tribunal of inquiry. The more action regarding and attention given to this issue, the better. Unfortunately, as has become the defining fact of the Department of Defence's track record, the tribunal appears deeply flawed from the outset. The terms of reference of the tribunal were received by the aforementioned advocacy groups with or no time allowed for them to express their dissatisfaction with their scope before they went to the Cabinet the very next day. The very victims of the atrocities the tribunal was created to investigate felt blindsided once more, but they will not be blindsided again.

As the Tánaiste looks away, I remind him that the very antithesis of restorative justice is the retraumatisation of the victims. Upon receiving the terms of reference, it was clear the focus of the tribunal was completely misguided, namely, homing in on the flaws in the complaints' process and not the levels of abuse. In the 1990 review, it was already acknowledged that the complaints system was grossly ineffective. In actuality, it said the process led to victimisation rather than to redress. In 2013, senior internal sources in the Defence Forces acknowledged the same thing. Three years later, the University of Limerick and even a judicial process deemed the system not fit for purpose. The former institution conducted interviews that found many members would not take part in the complaints process for fear of suffering a backlash.

They were fearful because they had seen the lives of colleagues ruined for doing as much. They had heard their voices, seen their faces and had served alongside those people. After acknowledging the wealth of empirical evidence we have already acquired about the complaints process, why are we gearing the tribunal towards investigating what we know has already been broken instead of investigating the root causes of such abuse?

The mishandling of complaints, as horrendous as it is, and its products were and continue to be only a symptom of the disease that has racked our military. Only when this has been addressed will we be able to pay adequate respect and attention to those who have suffered abuse. Let us not delay the improvement of the culture for future generations. The entire Department of Defence must be examined to root out these issues. It should not be the Department designing the terms of reference of the tribunal because this is flagrantly against best practice.

It must also be ensured that those who did not use the complaints process are included, as many did not have faith in using the system out of fear of repercussions. This has been established. The experiences and traumas of those people are just as valid as anyone else's. These advocacy groups must be included in the scope of the terms of reference because they must have a seat at the table as the process goes on. This is because it is their stories that have the worth that will steer us in the direction of justice and having better Defence Forces.

Before I conclude, it is important to mention the Air Corps Chemical Abuse Survivors. They deserve much more than a mention if only my time permitted it. I have rarely heard of a group struck by tragedy to the extent these people have been. There have been 105 deaths of former members of the Air Corps at an average age of 53. The tribunal in its current form completely missed out on hearing about their circumstances as they had made no complaints at the time of service because they were unaware of the damage their bodies were subjected to as a result of gross negligence by an absence of personal protective equipment, exposure to asbestos and other dangerous chemicals, and physical, mental and sexual assault. As the members of the group suggested yesterday, you cannot complain if you are dead.

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