Gardaí to investigate 'predators' in Defence Forces

James Cox

A Garda unit will pursue "predators" in the Defence Forces, in an operation that is already investigating 26 allegations of abuse.

The Garda Commissioner said he is committed to pursuing "predators" within the Defence Forces.

Drew Harris said a "national operation" has been set up within An Garda Síochána to investigate any claims of sexual assault from retired or serving soldiers.

Twenty-six complaints have already been received by gardaí, some dating back to the early 1960s.

Mr Harris said complaints can be reported to any garda station.

We do stand ready both at a national level and indeed at a divisional level.

"We do stand ready both at a national level and indeed at a divisional level. We have our protective service units, they are experienced and qualified investigators.

"We would encourage individuals who do wish to make a complaint to come forward to any garda division and their complaint will be dealt with in confidence and reported to the Director of Public Prosecutions."

The Protective Services Bureau will collate and coordinate the operation at a national level, Mr Harris said.

He added: “We have the necessary skills in each of our divisions to deal with such complaints but we want to have national oversight in terms of progress of those investigations but also sharing information.

“We have to take into account that victims may have been victimised, attacked on a number of occasions.

"So there is a need for national coordination in terms of addressing this issue."

Oversight group

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin is to bring a memo to Cabinet on Wednesday to establish an oversight group to ensure changes are carried out within the Irish military.

An independent report published last week detailed allegations of sexual misconduct, bullying and discrimination within the Defence Forces.

The Government has pledged to set up a judge-led statutory inquiry into the allegations outlined, which ministers have expressed shock and outrage at.

Mr Martin said on Tuesday that a date has not yet been chosen on when a public inquiry would be established, but said he was liaising with the Attorney General on establishing the initial steps.

Meanwhile, retired army captain, and a member of the Women of Honour group, Diane Byrne has said that the organisation was not informed in advance of the Garda Commissioner’s plans to launch a unit to investigate cases of sexual assault in the Defence Forces.

Ms Byrne told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that the first they heard of the unit was through the media.

When asked about her experience of garda involvement in complaints within the Defence Forces, she said it was anecdotal, but that any action should be part of a statutory inquiry.

Questions remained about what had happened to historic complaints. This course of action had always been open to members of the Defence Forces, she said, “although it was never really overtly publicised or overly encouraged".

“So we really need to understand what's going on. This all seems very, very fast and very new. Of course, we welcome it. For what it seems to be. But we have no understanding of what that is. And it's very, very hard for us to tell anybody that's coming to us, who has very little trust in everything that's been going on to date, to go into this because we don't know anything about it. We haven't been told.”

Women of Honour

There were “a lot of people out there who have suffered for a very, very long time,” she said. The Women of Honour group wanted to know what was going to happen in the statutory inquiry into historical issues.

“None of this is new. You know, we've been saying it for a long time. Lots of people have. Why? Why now? What's different now?”

The Tánaiste’s proposal to set up an independent oversight group to ensure the culture within the Defence Forces changes was “more of the same” from the perspective of the Women of Honour group.

“Again, no communication, no collaboration. We knew nothing about this. Like this is all before a statutory inquiry is settled. The issue was very straightforward here - what happened in the past? There needs to be a widespread investigation. Figure out what happened, who knew what, what did they do? What did they not do, and root them out.

"And only then when the people who may still be in there who had any hand or dealing in this, they need to be removed so that we can then get on with designing and implementing solutions. Anything other than that is just not going to get answers.”

Ms Byrne said this was all more of the same. “It's very, very hard to have trust in this. There's one chance to fix this issue going forward. And what we need is something very different to what's ever been done before to get some sort of real restorative change in this country.

“The one thing that we've never had with our troubled history is a chance to heal and move forward. And unless we can do this in an open and honest and transparent way, where anybody who had any involvement has to account for their actions, we're not moving forward from this time.” - Additional reporting from Vivienne Clarke