New Defence Minister Micheal Martin has vowed to clean up the Irish Defence Forces to stop it being a turn-off to women.
The ex-Taoiseach is determined to change the culture with a "zero tolerance" policy against bullying and sexual abuse as extremely low numbers of new female recruits are joining up.
He revealed by the end of last year just 7 per cent of our military - 564 members out of 7,987 - were women. Out of these 456 were in the Army, 65 in the Navy and 43 in the Air Corps.
READ MORE - Irish Navy cancelled patrols almost every second day in January as more staff quit
But in three general service recruitment campaigns in 2022 only 11 per cent of the applicants were women along with 14 per cent of those who applied to become a Cadet.
The Minister confirmed the Defence Forces have now hired a marketing and media partner to assist with recruitment advertising that will engage and appeal to women. They are also going to set up special female recruitment teams.
A special Gender Officer at Colonel level is also to be appointed and more female officers promoted to General Staff so the officer corp is not a boys' club.
However Mr Martin warned: "A key element of any successful organisation is that its members can undertake their work in an environment underpinned by dignity, equality and respect.
"From the extensive engagements with both serving and former members of the Defence Forces, it is all too clear that despite the reforms of the past 20 years, the systems, policies and procedures for dealing with unacceptable behaviour have not, and are not, serving all Defence Force personnel well.
"The Judge-led Independent Review Group established on 25 January 2022 has been examining those very systems, policies and procedures for dealing with issues relating to bullying, discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the Defence Forces as well as the prevailing workplace culture.
"The Review Group is nearing the conclusion of the report and it's expected to be submitted to me later this week."
The Minister vowed that he is determined to bring in a zero-tolerance culture within our military against any kind of bullying, discrimination, harassment or sexual abuse.
He said: "That is an absolute priority. I am committed to ensuring that every member of the Defence Forces has the right to undertake their duties in a safe environment underpinned by dignity and equality."
Mr Martin was responding to a series of written Dail questions from veteran Kildare TD Brendan Durkin, of Fine Gael.
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