Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I want to pay tribute to the Women of Honour, many of whom are here tonight, who have courageously brought to light the shocking litany of abuse and bullying that has been experienced by men and women in the Defence Forces over the decades. I had the opportunity to raise their case for the first time in the Dáil. At that time, I stated that if we wanted to achieve justice, we had to ensure first of all that the terms of reference must be drafted in consultation and in agreement with the Women of Honour. This has not happened. Indeed, the Women of Honour have been frustrated in this process a number of times by the Government. I worry that the time-honoured process of the State resisting truth is evident here again. This inquiry has fatal deficiencies. I am not confident that the tribunal, as it is currently constituted, will get to the truth. I am not confident that we will achieve the justice and accountability that is necessary to drive real reform of the Defence Forces. If we have no accountability, we will not have reform. That is plainly clear.

Incredibly, this tribunal will not investigate the abuse and bullying that has occurred in the Defence Forces. The tribunal dodges the damage that has been done to so many men and women. This is startling. This should be the primary objective of the tribunal. Instead, the tribunal only seeks to investigate the complaints process. The complaints process is already proven to be corrupt within the State. There is a long history of reports already written on this. In 1990, the Report of the Commission on Remuneration and Conditions of Service in the Defence Forces stated that the complaints procedure "is now held to be a meaningless ritual with little or no hope of ... redress". The report also refers to the perception that if a person applies for that redress, that they will get special treatment. The report states that the procedure has lost all credibility. The Workplace Climate in the Defence Forces study from 2016 also discusses the complaints procedure. It includes statements from members of the Defence Forces, who state that "you will suffer afterwards. You may win the battle but you will lose the war." Another source says "I would not be comfortable using that. It will come against you." The Government's own independent review group report recommended the immediate reform of the complaints procedure. Now you are setting up another tribunal to create another report on a procedure that is obviously broken, corrupt and damaging.

On another major weakness of this report, I welcome the fact that you have clarified this somewhat but given that there was such a push-back against people using the complaints procedure, should not a welcome within the terms of reference have stated in black and white that those people who did not use the complaints procedure on the first occasion have an opportunity to use the tribunal to get justice for themselves? The fact that it is not written in black and white is still incredible. I spoke to one woman today who said it is an incredible situation. She suffered sexual abuse and a cover-up by the assailant. The assailant was protected and went on to retire with their full pension while she was bullied out of the forces. She said that nobody came after her looking to see if she wanted to have a complaints forum. The fact that they are sampling here means that the process will refuse justice to many people who have suffered abuse and bullying in the past in the Defence Forces and that is a wrong as well.

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