Longford Westmeath Deputy Sorca Clarke says she hopes the approval of a statutory inquiry in allegations of bullying and sexual assault in the Defence Forces will hold people to account for their actions.
The Sinn Fein TD was commenting on the publication of an Independent Report into the allegations today.
The claims were detailed in a high-profile RTE documentary in late 2021.
It detailed the devastating personal and professional implications of abuse and attempts to report it.
Speaking on the Let's Talk show today, Deputy Clarke says the women who made the allegations had come up against nothing but closed doors for several years and a statutory inquiry should finally be able to get to the causes and consequences of what has happened.
You've mentioned something very important there and that's people being held to account for thier actions, and it's one of the concerns that the Women of Honour group had , was that the Independent Review group had no compellability.
So it relied on people coming forward voluntarily, regardless almost on which side of the equation they had been on.
It didn't have the teeth that they felt it needed to really get to the causes, the consequences, and the outcomes of what has happened.
Without getting down into that level of detail and without having that statutory element to it , it was never going to get the wide ranging view that was needed.
