Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is fair enough. I will share time with Senator Clonan.

I welcome the Tánaiste to the House for this important debate. I also welcome the veterans who are here. They clearly had to go through quite a lot of personal strife to get us to where we are today.

I welcome the appointment of Ms Justice Ann Power, who is a judge of international standing. I wish her well in the work she is about to undertake. I congratulate the Tánaiste on picking somebody of such standing to chair the tribunal.

I was going to ask the Tánaiste for a location for the tribunal, but he has jumped ahead of me on that. When will we see a website? When will email addresses be provided to allow witnesses to submit information? In welcoming the debate today, I have to say I was deeply disappointed that the report carried out by the IRG and its untested evidence were published in the way they were. In effect, they branded the Defence Forces as a group of misogynistic rapists, sexual predators and bullies whereas, in truth, it is a minority of those who served who carried out that sort of thing. No one will disagree that there were, and perhaps still are, bad and disgusting people who perpetrate these crimes, and they need to be rooted out and brought to justice. With that in mind, I am happy to see that the Tánaiste has instructed that the Garda be informed of any misconduct.

The IRG was set up to scope the issues within the Defence Forces, not to become judge and jury. The report, in the way it was published, provided a platform for those seeking headlines, many of them in this House, to jump on the bandwagon and join the lynch mob. I believe we still have a democracy, and untested evidence should never be given the prominence the IRG report was given.

We have here today veterans who suffered at the hands of these thugs - for thugs is what they were. They discredited the uniform they wore, the units they belonged to, their colleagues and their country. They hid behind their rank in some cases and in other cases found locations where there were no seeing eyes to carry out the actions they carried out. Bullying and harassment usually takes place out of sight. The classic bully is the one who does it in his or her office and is loved by everybody outside the office. The women who are here today and their colleagues are entitled to their day of justice.

The tribunal must establish indisputable facts, name the guilty and bring them before justice. In saying that, I always believe that natural justice must be at the forefront of anything we do. Therefore, I ask the Tánaiste today to ensure that no commissioned officer, non-commissioned officer or enlisted person should have to appear before the tribunal without full access to legal representation, up to and including senior counsel level. There are suggestions that many suffering bullying or aggravated sexual harassment, up to and including rape, did not report those incidents because of fear of long-term impact on their careers. I spent 25 years of my life representing employees as a trade union representative right up to the level of president of the Teachers Union of Ireland. In my time I came across many workers who claimed they were afraid to make reports for fear of impact on their career. That is something we as a community and a society have to stamp out. I hope that, as the Defence Forces go through their paces, that is one of the things we will provide - a friendly, open, transparent atmosphere for those who have complaints.

I now turn to the State's most loyal servants. I am talking about our Defence Forces, who are the first to be called into action during any national crisis. Will the Tánaiste order a survey to establish why those with grievances who were satisfied at the end are not being enumerated? Many soldiers had grievances, went through the complaints process, came out the other side and went on to have fruitful and significant careers. I was at the retirement of a sergeant major and he advised all present that on a Wednesday he had been charged with an offence and on the Friday he was promoted. Some people can come through the system and do well.

Many thousand members of the Defence Forces have served with pride. I was one myself. I felt valued and so did many of my colleagues. There is a problem insofar as the IRG report has damaged the reputation of people who were honest, decent, hard-working serving soldiers at all ranks. We need to do something to give them back the pride to which they are entitled and with which they served. The Defence Forces, like any organisation, has its problems, but it would be wrong to characterise the entire organisation as dysfunctional or misogynistic. An unsafe place to work in? Not really. My experience is that it was not an unsafe place to work in. I hope the guilty can be found and I believe that the numbers will not be as large as some in this House suggested when the IRG report came out. I want to know that those who have been found by the tribunal as having a case to answer are immediately brought to justice and that the people sitting here in the Gallery who have carried the pain of the abuse they suffered get their day in court and get justice.I will support the tribunal because it is about time that we got this out of the way. I pray, as a former member of the Defence Forces, that a blight is not brought on the entire organisation but that the thugs are identified and brought to heel.