The report of the independent review group into the Defence Forces is damning and deeply disturbing. It details a toxic culture that has become embedded in the Defence Forces, in which abuse, bullying, harassment, sexual assault and rape occur with regularity and impunity. The Defence Forces, we are told, "barely tolerates women and, at its worst, verbally, physically, sexually and psychologically abuses women in its ranks." Almost nine out of ten women who responded to the review group experienced sexual harassment while nearly 50% reported sexual assaults. There was a "discernible pattern of rape and sexual assault" in barracks, swimming areas, naval boats, showers and abroad on foreign deployments. Making a complaint about abuse and mistreatment was said to be "career ending" and would result in intimidation and retaliation. The main perpetrators of the abuse were male officers and there is evidence of serial perpetrators whose behaviour was not only never addressed, but, in fact, rewarded.

A consistent and embedded theme is that some members of the Defence Forces management abuse their positions of power and command in their treatment of subordinates. The report bluntly concludes the Defence Forces are unable, or unwilling, to make the changes that are needed to provide a safe working environment. There has been an "inability of the leadership to change the situation over the last 20 years". Meanwhile, initiatives to address unacceptable behaviour, brought in by the current leadership in 2021 and 2022, were "reactive and overdue" and had not yielded significant results.

Yesterday, the Chief of Staff, Seán Clancy, said he had been completely unaware of the endemic abuse in the Defence Forces for most of his 40-year career. Given the pervasive nature of the sadistic abuse that is detailed in this report, it is hard to understand how that could be the case. If it is true, and the Chief of Staff was blissfully unaware of the horrific abuse for the duration of his career, it speaks to a level of disconnection that is deeply worrying. It is also deeply concerning to read in the Irish Independent today that Lieutenant General Clancy, and his predecessors, gave repeated assurances to the Government – and previous governments – that robust measures were in place to deal with abuse and support victims. This is clearly not the case, and has never been the case. Not only were victims not supported: they were targeted and further abused if they tried to come forward. In contrast, perpetrators were promoted and rewarded. This continued not just for years, but for decades.

The time is up.

It drove lots of excellent members of the Defence Forces out of the institution, and resulted in huge levels of trauma and suffering.

The time is up.

My question is simple: Does the Tánaiste have confidence in the current leadership of the Defence Forces?

In the first instance, I thank the Deputy for raising the question. I commend the courage of those women and indeed men, who have shared their experience and have come forward through Women of Honour and Men and Women of Honour, and also current serving members of the Defence Forces who are not members of those specific groups, who have also been very candid and frank in sharing their experiences with me in recent times and with the Department. Only for them, the full scale of this would not have been revealed, which led to the establishment of the scoping review and the independent review group. The group met quite a number of people and many volunteered this information to the group. Raiseaconcern had been established by my predecessor over a year ago, which is a confidential service where people can come and share their experiences. I met with the people who oversee Raiseaconcern. There is a very strong alignment between what is in the independent review group's report, and what has come up with Raiseaconcern and in the Defence Forces independent review. It is quite shocking. As the report says, at the heart of it is a culture of fear and people not being in a position or fearful of putting their head above the parapet for fear of reprisal or because it would be a career-ending move. Promotion is a significant part of the dynamic within the Defence Forces. The view of a lot of members is that if you make a complaint you are without question limiting your prospects for promotion in the future. Hence, through the chain of command, there was a system and dynamic, which in its own way acted to suppress what was emerging.

We have to deal fundamentally and radically with all those issues, including the training culture, the chain of command, control and the entire ethos of what a modern defence force should be about, in terms of the threats and challenges we have had.

I am mindful of the quote from the report the Deputy provided on the resistance to change. I have confidence in the Chief of Staff’s commitment to change and reform. Also important is the statutory inquiry we will now establish. It will be a statutory fact-finding inquiry. The independent review group acknowledges it is not quite a fact-finding exercise and recommends the establishment of one. There will have to be significant reforms of that whole structure in the Defence Forces. I will bring proposals to Government on that aspect later.

I thank the Tánaiste but am a little bit confused about his reply. He spoke of resistance to change within the institution but then spoke of confidence in the leadership being able to change that. Will he clarify if he has confidence in the ability of the current leadership to change it, when it says it has no awareness? After 40 years of being an institution, it has no awareness. Is the Tánaiste worried about the disconnect there, if there is no awareness? The report is blunt and clear and it states that neither men nor women in the Defence Forces are working in a safe environment. That is a shocking indictment of our Defence Forces in 2023. The institution cannot guarantee safety for its own members, not just in a conflict zone but in a barracks here. It has to be stressed that much of this abuse is not just bad behaviour but criminal in nature.

I welcome all the recommendations of the report and commend the hard work and diligence of its authors, the Women of Honour and Katie Hannon. I am concerned at the length of time it might take to introduce those recommendations. The Tánaiste talked about the internal complaints body. There is clearly and understandably no trust in that. One of the recommendations is for an external one. When can we expect to see the reforms not just legislated for, which is required, but implemented and working? We know this is happening up to today and could be happening now.

That is a fair point. I am mindful of the report’s conclusions about the resistance. The Chief of Staff has committed to change and reform. We will quickly develop legislation to appoint an independent external complaints process. That has to happen. Interim steps will be taken to facilitate complaints directly to the Ombudsman, which can happen now and does not have to wait for a month any more, and to establish an oversight body on a statutory basis. That body will be completely external to the Defence Forces and will oversee the reform and culture change required.

Does the Tánaiste have confidence in the current leadership?

We will amend the Defence Act 1954 to provide a legislative basis for allegations of any type of sexual assault in the Defence Forces to be referred to An Garda Síochána. We will also set up a non-statutory inquiry into the practice and process of medical boarding and in respect of issues pertaining to suicide. I envisage taking expert bodies in to assess that issue in a professional way, and those who have expertise in that field.