Former army apprentice tells Defence Forces Tribunal he was forced to eat cigarette butts 

The alleged behaviour of 2LTB was considered at length by the tribunal, which is currently meeting in public to investigate the complaints processes within the Defence Forces, and whether their possible ineffectiveness enabled a culture of silence on complaints of abuse. File picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

A former army apprentice broke down as he recalled being forced to eat cigarette butts by an officer, and how he saw one of his fellow cadets crying in his bed before he later took his own life.

Padraic Lenaghan, a former radio technician cadet at the Army Apprentice School at Devoy Barracks in Naas, told  the Defence Forces Tribunal how the unnamed second lieutenant — known as 2LTB — swore in his face and ordered him to eat used cigarette butts from an ashtray after discovering a card game in progress at the apprentices’ dormitory in November 1989.

Mr Lenaghan recounted to the tribunal concerted abusive behaviour — bullying, random revoking of weekend leave, and emotional abuse by 2LTB from his induction into the school at the age of 16.

Of the cigarette incident, Mr Lenaghan recalled 2LTB entering the dormitory and screaming at him to eat the butts.

“He said put them in your effing mouth, that’s an order. He had a wild, wild look on his face. He said 'chew Lenaghan'. I just felt if I didn’t the whole platoon will be in so much trouble. It’s the army,” he said.

“I could feel the ashes all around my mouth on my tongue. I got some of them down. He said eat the rest of them. I was just scared like, and feeling so sick, I hid them under my tongue when he got me to open my mouth."

He said when the officer eventually left he “went to the toilet and got sick”.

The alleged behaviour of 2LTB was considered at length by the tribunal, which is currently meeting in public to investigate the complaints processes within the Defence Forces, and whether their possible ineffectiveness enabled a culture of silence on complaints of abuse.

2LTB has denied all allegations against him.

Mr Lenaghan, who left the Defence Forces in 1997, described how 2LTB had persistently hounded a fellow apprentice, Damien Traynor, until he had a nervous breakdown in 1991.

“He was all the time on his back, I was one of them, Damien was another,” he said, adding 2LTB made the platoon do press ups after a five mile run and then kicked Mr Traynor in the ribs while he was prone.

Death of apprentice 

On the death of apprentice and Leitrim native Oliver Mullaney, aged 19, in 1991, Mr Lenaghan described how the platoon of 53 teenagers was made to dance after a gun-range examination one Thursday.

“They made some of them dance together. It was weird, what was the purpose,” he said. "They got on Ollie’s case, up close in his face, roaring and shouting, 'Mullaney you’re a real old farmer, you’ll never be a soldier'. 

"Ollie was a quiet country man, he wasn’t taking it well. I recall Ollie crying in his bed that night. I didn’t see him again.”

Mr Mullaney shot himself with his own weapon that weekend in the barracks. Mr Lenaghan said there had been no investigation into the incident that he was aware of, though shortly after 2LTB left the unit.

“Everyone was 100% sure the pressure of this man 2LTB was too much for Ollie,” he said. He said no apprentice had been willing to make a complaint at the time as “being in the army and making complaints didn’t go together for us”.

He said even if he had wanted to complain he wouldn’t have known how.

Complaints “are just completely alien to the army, the whole macho, no complaining army”, he said.

He said he had been deeply moved by the fact no mention of Mr Mullaney was made at the time the platoon passed out in 1992.

“It was as if the man never existed. No one said we’re missing one of our friends,” he said.

Mr Lenaghan said that if the treatment of the apprentices had been different “Oliver Mullaney would be alive. I wouldn’t be here (at the Tribunal)”.