‘Some way to go’ for Defence Forces abuse survivors

The Women of Honour's Diane Byrne: 'There's still a lot of concerns and because we believe a tribunal will be the most transparent process we can expect to get, we want to keep open movement for constructive dialogue.' Picture: PA

The Defence Forces tribunal terms of reference may well have been approved by Cabinet but there is “some way to go” before survivors groups such as the Women of Honour (WoH) are satisfied that they will be effective.

However, they have been completely rejected by the Canary Movement, which is the biggest group of survivors and victims of abuse and mistreatment.

Spokesperson Alan Nolan said: “Micheál Martin and the Department of Defence have manoeuvred "their" terms of reference into position to ensure the smallest amount of investigation can be done.

“A minister who insists on setting the terms of reference for an investigation into his own department should be an alarm bell for every person in the Republic of Ireland.”

WoH’s Diane Byrne said: “There's very, very little change between the final terms of reference and the version we were handed in December. While there are some minor concessions, there's still a lot of concerns and because we believe a tribunal will be the most transparent process we can expect to get, we want to keep open movement for constructive dialogue.

"There is still some way to go to distinguish this from just being dressed up as a paper exercise compared to a proper tribunal. After all, it is still essentially mostly about an investigation into a complaints process. 

Most of the terms seem to relate to that, begging the question: why spend so much time asking if a failed complaints system is flawed when we already know it is.”

She also said that it is still unclear how many survivors and victims of abuse will be included in the tribunal.

“Most people who suffered from abuse and other mistreatment did not engage in the complaints process because they didn’t trust it,” she said. "We need to go through the terms of reference to see how many people could be eligible to give any testimony.”

She said a key factor at play is the fact that the terms of reference relate to a key recommendation from the Independent Review Group (IRG) report last March.

However, the WoH boycotted the entire IRG review panel investigations as it believed the remit was too narrow.

“We've always argued quite comprehensively against the IRG report being linked to the setting up of a tribunal.

"We didn’t co-operate with it because we felt that it was entirely flawed, and not fit for purpose. Building a tribunal on top of an already flawed process is not ideal," she said.

Despite the criticisms, the Department of Defence said: “The tribunal will be a watershed moment in reform of our Defence Forces, parallel to the transformative investment to improve conditions for serving personnel. The Tánaiste has considered all views and observations received and has accepted a wide range of suggested changes to the draft terms."