Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I express my deep appreciation to Noel Murphy for his work on the committee and as Superintendent. He will be sorely missed. His good humour and pleasant way are remarkable. He is a lovely man, one of life's great gentlemen. We will miss him. We will miss him at the count as well because he always got it right on the labour panel, at least when he was counting my votes. We will miss that.

This is the first time I have had an opportunity to speak since the horrendous report on the Defence Forces and, in particular, the Women of Honour. I have thought long and hard about what I might say this morning because this is an extremely sensitive subject. I am standing here, wearing proudly my remembrance of being a member of the Defence Forces. Thousands of men and women have served this country with distinction and honour. We have a number of rotten apples who destroyed the reputation of those men and those women. I have had colleagues and friends contact me over the last few days who are devastated, their good names and reputations destroyed by the actions of some horrible people.

I commend the Women of Honour. For those four women to come out publicly and place their entire lives on the line in front of the people of Ireland, they are to be commended and I really think they did a fantastic job. The authors of the independent review did a fantastic job. However, their review is now a series of allegations and those allegations must be followed through with a statutory inquiry.

By the way, I have worked on bullying in the workplace for a long time, although I have not been involved in rape or sexual harassment cases. However, by and large, in my experience, bullying in the workplace takes place behind closed doors. It is an evil, disgusting way to treat people. It happens that, usually, the bullies are lovely people publicly, but they are horrible people when faced one-on-one. Many women who have suffered sexual assault and rape have had to carry that silently throughout their lives for fear of putting their personal lives on public display.

I say to my friends and colleagues who served this country with distinction - they are gentlemen and gentlewomen, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers - that we will not let you down. We will find the people who destroyed your reputation, we will support the Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Seán Clancy, in every way we can and we will provide the Defence Forces with the resources they need to clean up the organisation and get rid of those who would destroy our good names. All of us who served did so with pride.By Christ, these fellows should never be allowed to walk the streets again. I hope they get what is coming to them. Again, I commend those four women, who put their lives in the public domain.