The State owes the Women of Honour a serious debt of gratitude for their campaign to shine a light on the horrendous litany of abuse that happened within the Defence Forces. The Women of Honour were women who simply sought to work in the service of the State. They put their lives on the line for the State and, shockingly, that service was met by assault, rape, abuse, bullying and discrimination. More importantly, the State owes the Women of Honour a commitment that any terms of reference of the future investigation will be agreeable to them. I ask the Taoiseach to make sure the actions and inaction of the Department and Ministers of Defence will be included within those terms of reference. How could the Department of Defence and successive Ministers have presided over what happened in the past number of years and what is happening still within the Defence Forces?

Any terms of reference can only be approved by the House, but I can absolutely give the assurance that the Tánaiste is going to engage with the Women of Honour, who helped to bring this to light in the way they did and campaigned on it, and with the Men and Women of Honour, which is another group, RACO, PDFORRA and retired members. He is very keen to engage with all of them, to come up with terms of reference which will be put to the House.