Tom Clonan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senators Doherty, Pauline O'Reilly and Chambers and commend them on the Bill. As we know, there is a serious level of underreporting of gender-based violence, sexual assault and rape. A high threshold, or momentum, is required to report it. I am mindful of my experience as an officer in the Defence Forces investigating the experiences of my female colleagues, through which I found that the sexual violence within our armed forces was systemic and systematic to the extent that one in four of our serving personnel could expect to be sexually assaulted within the workplace.

Despite that report and the findings and recommendations of my PhD, despite the subsequent independent Government inquiry that investigated and vindicated it, and despite the subsequent independent monitoring groups, in September of last year the Women of Honour group reiterated their disclosures. The point I am making is that those women had to come forward and identify themselves. It was the first time of which I am aware, in the history of this issue, that women in the Defence Forces have come forward and given up their anonymity to press home the immediacy and urgency of the issue.

It is clear, following the disclosures of the Women of Honour group and the subsequent reports to me and others from serving personnel - most of whom were women, although some were young men, in our Naval Service, Air Corps and Army - that 22 years after the original research was completed, it remains a persistent problem in our Defence Forces. The Defence Forces are an institution that purports to protect and defend our citizens, yet it is not a safe place for 51% of our population. One of the reasons it is so difficult for women to come forward and report on their experiences, as has been set out, relates to the existence of not only a very adversarial system but also, within that, a device not based on evidence but one that is capricious, idiosyncratic and contrived, whereby somebody can come forward and produce a "character reference".

The Bill is commendable and I will fully support it. Much reference has been made to the fact three female Senators have brought it forward, but I reassure the House we are all in this together and it is important men stand up, call it out and invest the same energy in calling out the perpetrators as they do in calling out people such as Senator Hoey who want to speak truth to power and to speak up about their experiences. That energy should be invested in identifying and protecting the rest of civil society from perpetrators. I welcome and will support the Bill.