Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Tánaiste. First of all, I welcome this report. It is very good that we carried it out. It is a starting point but tús maith leath na hoibre. It is important to put on the record of the House some of the findings of the report. I will quote a few of them. The report states that "at best, the Defence Forces barely tolerates women, and, at its worst, verbally, physically, sexually and psychologically abuses women in its ranks.” This has been happening for 40 years and continues to this day. One of the women was reported as saying that to be female in the Irish Defence Forces is to be considered an object rather than a full human being.

Some of the practices in the organisation were and are horrendous. One of these was "tubbing", which refers to “the placing of an individual in a barrel, which may contain any combination of chemicals, oil, airplane fuel, deceased animal carcasses, or other substances, for the purposes of hazing or punishment.” In the report, women described being subjected to weekly punishment, particularly on career development or promotional courses. This was both in terms of "physical and mental torture." Female members of the Defence Forces were also advised to “maintain two locks on their cabin or bedroom doors if there has been an attempt to assault or forcibly enter their sleeping quarters in the past.”

The story of Roslyn O'Callaghan is particularly outrageous. She was raped by a senior member of the Defence Forces. After reporting the incident, she was told there was insufficient evidence to charge her alleged attacker with sexual assault or rape. The attacker ended up receiving just a €200 fine. This is an organisation that obviously needs serious changes. In the current security context, it does not seem like an organisation that is ready to defend this country or one that can protect our subsea cables and territories if we cannot protect our own women. We must ensure that these allegations are acted upon. It will take far more than just a few cosmetic changes. This is a systematic and cultural issue that runs through the whole organisation. Unfortunately, the Defence Forces are not the only places where we see the patriarchy being very strong to the detriment of women.

First, what justice will there be for victims? Will the perpetrators of abuse be brought to justice? Will investigations that were done within the Defence Forces by military police be reopened? It is encouraging to hear that the Garda Commissioner is opening an investigation following the publication of the report as An Garda Síochána has received 26 complaints and is expecting to receive more.We need to ensure that legislation is amended in order to allow for Garda jurisdiction to investigate these complaints. We also need to encourage any victims to come forward, in the knowledge that their complaints will be properly handled this time.

Second, what will be done to completely change this culture? The make-up of the oversight body is promising, with experts in organisational behaviour, including in gender. There is also organisational transformation at scale and at rapid pace. We need to make sure this body is not impeded by the organisations it is overseeing and that it is allowed access. When we are setting up the new body, it is important that we have a minimum of 50% women involved. I strongly suggest that we have many more women than men involved in the group because that is a huge part of the issue. When there is a gender imbalance, things go wrong. If we want gender balance in every walk of life, including in the Defence Forces, how can we expect any woman to want to join the Defence Forces with the findings of this report?

I know many good men in the Defence Forces. We need to be careful not to tar them all with the same brush. At the same time, because gender imbalance and sexual assault keep coming up in every walk of life, often the men who say nothing are part of the problem. Being passive and not calling out bad behaviour when he sees it, makes a man part of the problem unfortunately. We need the good men to stand up and call things out when their fellows are doing wrong to women, in every walk of life, not just the Defence Forces.