Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

One of the major concerns relates to when there is some pattern of behaviour that should be investigated, yet people are gripped by fear and cannot come forward. How is that type of situation investigated? What Senator Brian Hayes says is compelling. It would be much more compelling, however, if this debate were taking place before the publication of the Doyle report, Challenge of the Workplace, in 2002. It is fair to say the Doyle report revealed widespread bullying and harassment within the Army and that people were afraid to come forward. There was no proper system of formal or informal complaint. That has changed considerably since the Doyle report. Much has been done in the past two years, as the follow-on report published on 24 September last by my predecessor, Deputy Smith, will show. Having said that, much remains to be done. For example, 200 direct contact persons are now being put in place within the Army. These will be identifiable as people serving personnel may talk to who will listen to problems and respond to them in a non-judgmental fashion, while offering advice on what may be done and where to go. Anybody accused of victimising someone, even if the complaint turns out to be unfounded, will be subject to military discipline in his or her own right.

I want to see the Doyle report working its way through the system. Another review will be carried out in two or three years time. When all the report's recommendations are in place, a formal and informal system will exist where anybody with a legitimate complaint need have no fear of intimidation in coming forward. Comparison has been made with the Independent Garda Ombudsman Bill 2001. I was involved in the preparation of that Bill. Deliberately and as a matter of policy, the Garda ombudsman is a dual function office. It is an office where complaints may be lodged about the activities of individual members of the Garda Síochána, but it is also an inspectorate.

What has been decided in talks with the Army and its representative associations is that the ombudsman for the military would have one function, which is as a final court of appeal for someone making a complaint. Up to now the final court of appeal was the Minister of Defence or in recent years the officer known as the CIO who would normally make a recommendation to the Minister, which was usually accepted. That system was ultimately deemed unsatisfactory and an ombudsman, along the lines now being proposed, was the preferred solution of the Army and its representative organisations. It is intended here that the ombudsman for the military replace the Minister for Defence as the final court of appeal as regards a complaint which has gone through the system. There was no suggestion at any stage that the Minister, as the final court of appeal, could initiate an investigation. That was not part of the system. It has been agreed to replace the Minister with the ombudsman. The deal is that the ombudsman is the final court of appeal, not that he or she will have an inspectorate role as well. That would be a totally unwarranted extension of his or her duties. I would have no authority, unless I went back to Government, to allow the ombudsman to have this second function.

One may argue for and against, but another example occurs to me. Suppose the ombudsman did have the power and went to investigate a particular situation when certain matters came to his or her notice and subsequently a complaint was made. The investigator here will be the final court of appeal. The ombudsman will obviously be influenced already by what has been heard in his or her investigative role. However, it is to the ombudsman that the complainant makes the final appeal. That appears to me to be a difficulty, but perhaps it is one we may get around. I take on board what the Senator is saying, namely, that it might be possible in the most extenuating or exceptional circumstances to give the ombudsman the power to initiate something himself or herself. I am certainly prepared to examine that. I doubt, however, that it will be possible to frame the legislation in such a way as to prevent the ombudsman, in effect, from getting the dual role which the Garda ombudsman has but which nobody intended this office to have in the first place. Nonetheless, I will examine the matter between now and Report Stage.