Inquiry into Defence Forces failings ‘as soon as possible’, Varadkar says

Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images The Government is keen to have a statutory inquiry into allegations of sexual misconduct, bullying and discrimination in the Defence Forces up and running “as soon as possible”, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said. Speaking during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil on Wednesday, the Taoiseach said a report on the Defence Forces was “shocking” in response to Labour leader Ivana Bacik. Mr Varadkar said the Government was eager to have the statutory inquiry up and running before the Dáil’s summer recess but couldn’t make that commitment without first consulting with the Women of Honour and other groups. “Issues with bullying and harassment, some of a sexual nature in the Defence Forces has been reported on before, but never so starkly,” Mr Varadkar said. Unlike many other issues that we’ve dealt with in this House, it’s not historic, it’s ongoing, and it appears to be wide scale.” The Fine Gael leader said a number of recommendations had been made, which the Government had accepted, and that some could be done “very quickly” including amending legislation to provide a legislative basis to enable allegations of any type of sexual assault in the Defence Forces to be referred to An Garda Síochána rather than the internal military police. Previous studies have shown that the suicide rate was similar to those of the same age group, but we need to look at that again and we will.” Mr Varadkar said the Defence Forces was in “critical need” of “fundamental and immediate cultural and behavioural change”. Nonetheless, in this report, we read of bullying, discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment, including sexual violence, and we read that victims when they saw help under the internal complaint system were left disappointed and often penalised and many good soldiers left as a result.” – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/oireachtas/2023/03/29/inquiry-into-defence-forces-failings-as-soon-as-possible-varadkar-says/