An Cosantóir

| 9 www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE dignity and respect in the workplace, and they were championed by senior male leaders across the organisation, from officers to NCOs. We also wanted to identif y the scale and extent of the problem we were facing, so we did our own baseline cultural sur vey, in the summer of 2022 and it was open to all members of the Defence Forces. There was a ver y strong representation in the feedback – about 10% of the organisation took part. One of the things that the sur vey told us was that the experiences of women and men in the organisation are ver y different. For example, there was a higher percentage of men who said that they felt that their work was respected as opposed to women. This information from the sur vey was needed to carr y our work forward and decide what are the next objectives and goals we need to go after. Another key initiative we developed was the Sexual Ethics and Respectful Relationships (SERR) workshop. It is a scenario based workshop, led by trained specialists and militar y champions, where personnel can speak in an open forum about how they would address and deal with certain situations if they happened. We rolled it out in a number of pilots in the last quarter of 2022, and again for the last cadet class and a Standard NCO course, because they are the future leaders of the organisation. We've just secured the ser vices of UCC to roll out that program across the Defence Forces for the next nine months. Following that, we're going to employ five full-time SERR advisors, social workers who will deliver this workshop and training. The last significant element is a review of our A7 brief, our interpersonal relationships brief that ever y individual gets when they come into the organisation or when they go on career courses. We have standardised and updated it with the modern definitions and the modern practices that we know are required. And that has been rolled out since December of last year. Now the OCSC is looking at what is next, and to build on the work of the IRG, there are a number of recommendations there, especially in the area of redress of wrongs and that will be taken forward by the subject matter experts in the HR space in the organisation. The IRG published their report in March of this year with their recommendations. Can you go through some of the recommendations? Have any been progressed at this point? The report was stark reading. One of the key points about the report is that while it wasn't designed to find facts, it did come up with some ver y clear recommendations that have to be implemented. We will soon have a Head of Strategic HR (a civilian appointed member) who will report to the Chief of Staff and will be the lead in implementing the IRG recommendations. There were a number of pillars to the recommendations, the first being that an inquir y will be established. The Tánaiste has announced that while the exact terms of reference aren't finalised, it will be a public, judge led inquir y, that will have significant powers to look at the systems that the Defence Forces have in place and whether they were fit for purpose or not. This may also lead to individual cases being looked at and how they were addressed by the organisation. There will also be an External Oversight Body, chaired by Prof. Brian MacCraith. They have been given broad terms of reference, which have been published in the last number of weeks. Some of the things they 'll be responsible for will be examining our complaints system and seeing if it is fit for purpose? They have a broad remit over a range of other areas from training to administration and HR. Another area recommended by the IRG was the area of clothing for female ser ving personnel and particular issues about maternity wear. The Defence Forces Clothing Committee met with external consultants who specialise in the design of uniforms and the next iteration of our uniforms will have female specific uniform variants, which is ver y positive. There were recommendations around our PSS ser vice, specifically around confidentiality clauses and they were more or less already in place. And then there will be a look at our medical system and how medical boards are conducted. A lot of the other recommendations are in the HR space which will be the remit of the new Head of Strategic HR. There is also a recommendation focused on the area of reprisals - identif ying if there are incidents where people who have made a complaint have been victimised or ostracised for bringing forward something? But I think the review of the redress of wrong system has to happen first. Are you concerned at all, Sir that this report is going to affect recruitment levels in the DF, particularly females, which are already in the minority at around 7%? We have to be sure that the Defence Forces is a safe and positive environment in which to work. That's the primar y goal of any employer. The Chief of Staff has been ver y clear that the Defence Forces will not www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE | 9 Brig Gen Mulcahy meeting the DF GENAD Lt Cdr Caroline Scanlon Brig Gen Mulcahy at a recent conference Brig Gen Mulcahy seen here during a recent visit to KFOR

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