Women of Honour want military police removed from sex assault probes in Defence Forces

The Women of Honour group have renewed calls for an inquiry amid further allegations that an army officer tried to grope a female soldier following a gathering in the summer of 2020.

A group of serving and former female members of the Defence Forces have renewed calls for a statutory inquiry into abuse cases after details emerged of another sex assault investigation being launched within the army.

The Women of Honour have likened the way the Defence Forces handles complaints to the same way the Catholic Church handled child sex abuse claims.

Their renewed call for an inquiry comes amid further allegations that an army officer tried to grope a female soldier following a gathering in the summer of 2020.

The incident, revealed by the Irish Times, is alleged to have happened after an outdoor lunch attended by military personnel at McKee Barracks, Dublin.

It is claimed the officer got drunk, fell asleep on the base and is then alleged to have tried to grope one of two female soldiers who tried to wake him up.

The Women of Honour, who are made up of women whose careers in the Defence Forces have been blighted by abuse, say this case yet again underlines the importance of a statutory inquiry.

“The latest media reports about an alleged sexual assault by a male officer on a female colleague emphasises once again why a statutory inquiry into the handling of cases of abuse in the Defence Forces is necessary,” they said in a statement.

Rejected review

They also repeated their rejection of Minister of Defence Simon Coveney’s proposal to establish a judge-led independent review to look at issues related to sexual misconduct, bullying, harassment, and discrimination in the Defence Forces.

“The weak review proposed by minister Coveney will be ineffective and powerless to get to the real heart of the issues.

“It is absurd that issues such as alleged sexual assaults and abuse still remain to be dealt with within the military system.

“Military police, in reality, are subject to the chain of command and act on behalf of the Defence Forces, investigate internal matters and then send a file to the Director of Military Prosecutions.

“It remains the case that the military legal system applies military law to address matters — of the military, by the military and for the military.”

They say that as well as it being time for an independent public statutory inquiry, it is also time for civil and criminal laws to be applied to the Defence Forces.

Allegations

Allegations such as those at McKee Barracks must, they said, should be taken out of the hands of Defence Forces investigators.

“Allegations such as those revealed at McKee Barracks should not remain within the military system to investigate,” they said.

“A similar regime was operated within the Church in which canon law was applied in horrific cases of sex abuse.

“It was not tolerated there and it should not be tolerated in the Defence Forces either.”

“The frequency of such dreadful allegations, the continuance of them and the repeated failures to deal with them and the resultant toxic culture of acceptance, cover-ups and victim-blaming, merits nothing less than a public statutory investigative process as a first step toward the radical change needed.”