Brian Stanley: Why 90% of Defence Complaints Go to the Ombudsman

Thanks, Comhairleach, and my apologies for being late, so I hope any of the questions that I ask, Mr. Mann, maybe they've been covered already, but I have just some questions in relation to the annual report. Just the first thing I want to say is just in terms of in terms of complaints regarding gender discrimination, I noticed in it that you said that over the past four years there have been no complaints from female personnel of alleged gender discrimination, and that's welcome. Along with the fact that in 2025 it didn't receive any complaints of what might be described as inappropriate sexual behavior. And I suppose the question around that is, is that, and a few questions, maybe I'll set out a couple of them, but in relation to those two issues, is it the case that because of the establishment of the office that you feel that that in itself has acted as a deterrent? I mean, it's obviously good news, you know, and I suppose it shows that you know, it seems to indicate that the level of oversight and the fact that there is a complaints mechanism there through your office, which is doing, seems to be doing very good work, the fact that the presence of the office and the establishment of the office, do you believe that that has led to you know, positive figures like that? Because we know that in previous years there was a lot of complaints. Oh, I do, and I think all the the improvements that are under underway within the defense forces in terms of training of investigators, military investigators, the new Mr. Duffy, the the creation of this IGM and for bullying, IGE, IGE, and Mr. Kevin Duffy is heading that and they deal with complaints of sort of interpersonal type complaints like and bullying and complaints of that nature, and I think they're, we have no direct involvement with with him or with his office, so I can't, I don't know how many cases he's had to date, but all of the, and the creation of the of the Defense Forces Tribunal, there seems to be certainly a greater awareness of the need to treat people properly within the defense forces, you know, by senior management, and I think that's becoming clear. I think there's a, there's a, there's a greater, there's a more sympathetic reception on the, on the part of senior military people to complaints, and they, so I think, I think there's been an overall huge improvement. That's my feeling. You call it some kind of a culture shift. Culture shift, yeah. Could I just add a question regarding the reserve, which Deputy Connell heard the answer to that, so I'm not going to go back over that, just in terms of where they fit into this, and, you know, it's good news that they are aware and included under the, and have a right to make complaints to the Ombudsman's office. Just in, in relation to the, in relation to the Air Corps, which is a very small percentage, relatively small percentage, of the overall defense forces, but yet 19 out of 32, you know, two-thirds of the complaints were from the, from the Air Corps. Why is that? Well, I don't have an answer to that. It would seem to be, there's something. But it is, it is clearly disproportionate, but I, and I, and I said in answer to one of the questions, I, that was, that I was asked earlier, I felt that, that's, that, that's a blip for last year, because it wasn't the case the previous year, and so far this year, the Air Corps number, the complaints of, from Air Corps personnel are way down. So, it's more proportionate to the overall. Yes, oh yes. Yeah. So I think it's. Could I ask in relation to the 19 out of 32 for, for last year, was it in particular, was it got to do with a particular issue? Was there a, you know, was there a commonality between, you know, no, no, no. Most complaints, and most of those complaints, just, I mean, I don't have details in front of me, but from my recollection, most of those complaints would be to do with course selection, promotion, so they would follow the same pattern as complaints from other parts that, any other divisions of the defense forces, but I think it was an unusual occurrence last year, and I don't see it happening this year. Okay. But other than that, I can't really give you an explanation why it happened last year. Okay, and just, if we just move on to the, the 90% that's coming to you directly, you know, does that, does that still tell us that, you know, there's a fear within the lower ranks of the defense forces in terms of trying to use the internal procedures that are there without going to you first, without going to the Ombudsman's office first? You know, it would seem to indicate, you know, you can see that the numbers have increased according to the, on a sliding scale over the last, last three years or so, where the numbers actually going directly to yourselves has actually increased dramatically up to 90% of complaints. You know, does that indicate that there's still a fear maybe among the rank and file within the defense forces of making complaints internally for fear of maybe, you know, negative outcomes from more senior officers? Well, the, I think it's down to simply if you have a choice to take a complaint internally, where personnel like your, some officer is going to be who you may know, so there's a degree of awkwardness or embarrassment there, but if you have, on the one hand, you have an option to go internally to the defense forces or an option to go to the, to the Ombudsman, where it may end up anyway, if you don't like the outcome. I think there's a lot of, I expect a lot of personnel say to themselves, well, sure, why, why waste time going, I mean, you know, they're going to the internal system because we have the option and it's there and it's, you know, and it's probably less awkward for, often on a personal level. I'm not talking about there being any negative sort of The Ombudsman's office is more efficient. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, and it's, it's, it's sort of independent. There's a certain attraction there if you're a complainant, and I think that's, it's just people making that choice. You know, just note that the vast majority were dealt with in, you mentioned in your report, four to six weeks, most of the complaints. Could, could I just ask you in relation to, in relation to, well, I find there's a lot of people maybe in, in jobs and that, in various positions, sometimes they will, instead of maybe going to an internal route or even using a representative body like a trade union, they'll go to a solicitor, first port of call, right, and which I often find a bit unusual, but sometimes there's good reasons for that. Do you find that, that some people, you know, are there cases where, you know, it's serving personnel in the defense forces, may go to a solicitor outside in relation to a complaint, maybe before yourselves become aware of it, and maybe refer back to yourselves? Does that mean, is that an issue? Because I certainly see it arising in recent years in places of employment where that's happening, rather than going to maybe, you know, use an internal grievance procedures. Well, we get very few, maybe one or two-year complaints which maybe include a letter from a solicitor. The complainant has gone and sought legal advice and the solicitor maybe has written to us, in other words, the complaint has come to, into the office by way of a solicitor's letter, but the solicitor then, I mean, we, we, that we would obviously, if, if a person wants to be represented by a solicitor, they can, they, that, we don't have any particular issue with that. If, if that's their wish, so, but it would be in a tiny, probably one percent of cases, would you see any involvement of a solicitor? Sometimes, you do occasionally see somebody going, a member of the defense forces going to a solicitor, and maybe the solicitor tells them, look, you're better off just going to the ombudsman. So the solicitor drops out then and we get the complaint, but you might see that there was a solicitor involved at some stage, but we, we really, very few complaints come to us with a solicitor involved.