Women of Honour have slammed the Government's review group into past abuse of female soldiers and called for the Taoiseach to scrap it as it is “unfit for purpose.”
The ex-soldiers also want the Defence Minister, Simon Coveney, removed from the process as they have lost faith in him.
The campaign group representing past victims of abuse in the Defence Forces have hit back at the Independent Review Group (IRG) set up to deliver them justice.
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Women of Honour have lost confidence in the process set up by the Government.
The scandal of sexual, physical and mental abuse in the Defence Forces led the Government to establish an Independent Review Group to investigate the serious, horrific allegations.
But the group representing the victims has now moved to distance itself from the Government’s investigations process and want a fresh start to be announced by the Taoiseach.
A Women of Honour spokeswoman said: “The absence of logic is what mystifies us most. “For the betterment of the Defence Forces and by extension the Country a thorough investigation with identification of all issues and contributory factors and a comprehensive understanding of the organisation's failures is required before an effective overhaul reflective of modern society can be done.
“Instead the age-old game-playing approach is being used - attempt to fix the problems internally within the same organisation that caused them, dismiss those who speak out rather than working with them and put the responsibility for the failures on those at the bottom.
“Whilst this year has not achieved everything we hoped, it has resulted in a unified voice amongst many past members, current members, families, friends and supporters world-wide. “We believe this voice will continue to grow louder as more and more speak out against bullying and repression.
“We, the Women of Honour, along with all of those who have come forward are not going away.
“We are asking the Taoiseach to accept, with immediate effect, that the IRG is not fit for purpose.
“We are asking him to remove responsibility from the Minister for Defence to ensure true independence, for equitable engagement across stakeholders and follow through on his previous commitment that should the IRG not be adequate, that we would move to a statutory process.
“Finally we want to appeal again to the Defence Forces and the Department of Defence – avoid quick fixes, work with victims, learn from them and rebuild trust to build the Defence Forces that we all deserve.”
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