An information resource for serving & former members of the Irish Army Air Corps suffering illness due to unprotected toxic chemical exposure in the workplace.
The Defence Forces Tribunal is expected to cost over €25m by next year.
Figures released to the Irish Examiner show administration and legal costs totalled €3.3m in 2024, including €2.8m in legal fees.
Those figures include the costs of the tribunal’s own legal team, as well as legal representation for the Defence Forces chief of staff and the defence minister.
In 2025, administration and legal costs rose to €8.26m, of which €7.7m was spent on legal fees.
Legal costs had reached €4.4m by the end of June 2026, with a further €360,000 spent on administration costs.
Those figures form part of the €7.5m allocated by the Government last October to cover the tribunal’s costs in 2026.
Costs are expected to exceed €6m in 2027.
Read full article by Neil Michael on the Irish Examiner website below.
As hearings pause for summer, the inquiry has heard harrowing evidence while legal costs continue to rise.
Photo: Gareth Chaney/ Collins Photos
The tribunal is a three-year inquiry into how complaints were handled in the Defence Forces from 1983 until 2024.
Its establishment in June 2024 was a recommendation of the Independent Review Group (IRG): Defence Forces Report.
Published in March 2023, that report detailed disturbing allegations which included the rape of both male and female soldiers.
Those abused include the Women of Honour, a group of serving and former members whose allegations featured in an RTÉ documentary by reporter Katie Hannon in 2021 which prompted the review in the first place.
They also include members of the Army Apprentice School in Devoy Barracks, Naas, Co Kildare, and air corps personnel exposed to toxic chemicals without being provided with adequate PPE.
Read full article by Neil Michael on the Irish Examiner website below.
A non-commissioned officer broke down at the Defence Forces Tribunal as he recalled seeing the body of Oliver Mullaney after he died by suicide.
David Henry, a former acting company sergeant in the Army Apprentice School in Devoy Barracks, said what he saw affects him “to this day”.
Mr Henry, who retired from the army in 1998, also told the tribunal that he was “ashamed” to have been an NCO in the 34th Platoon where Mr Mullaney had served until his death.
At the tribunal Mr Henry said: “Here, in front of everybody, I am ashamed to be a company sergeant of an apprentice company with people carrying on like that.
“I have never forgotten what I saw that (June 22) night and it still affects me to this day.
“To the apprentices of the 34th Platoon, I apologise to each and every single one of them here and now. That is something that I, as (company sergeant), thought I’d never have to face.”
Read full article by Neil Michael on the Irish Examiner website below.
Brigadier General Stephen Ryan told the Defence Forces Tribunal second lieutenants and lieutenants are ‘trained to do their job, and part of their job is to do recruit training’
Brigadier General Stephen Ryan after giving evidence at the Defence Forces Tribunal. Picture: Neil Michael.
One of the army’s most senior officers has described as “inaccurate” a claim that training for junior officers left them “ill-equipped” to train new recruits.
The claim was made on Thursday by a retired officer known as 2Lt B, who is alleged to have repeatedly mistreated recruits under his care at the Army Apprentice School in Devoy Barracks, Naas, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The alleged mistreatment includes 2Lt B allegedly getting recruits to dance with each other and sing nursery rhymes after a day of firing range training on June 20, 1991. He is also alleged to have ordered a recruit to eat cigarette butts from an ashtray after catching him smoking in his dormitory.
Brigadier General Stephen Ryan was asked if junior officers were ill-equipped to train recruits. He told the Defence Forces Tribunal: “That wouldn’t be an accurate statement.”
He said second lieutenants and lieutenants are “trained to do their job, and part of their job is to do recruit training”.
He was himself a lieutenant when he was ordered to take over command of the 34th Platoon in July 1991 from 2LTB, who was a 2nd lieutenant at the time.
In a statement he had made to the tribunal, 2Lt B — who cannot be named for legal reasons — had said his own training didn’t equip him for his role as a platoon commander in the Army Apprentice School.
Brig Gen Ryan, who is the general officer commanding two brigade covering the eastern region of the country, said that, by the time he arrived at Devoy Barracks to take over from 2LTB, he was “well capable” of training recruits.
Read full article by Neil Michael on the Irish Examiner website below.
A Defence Forces officer accused of ordering a recruit soldier to eat cigarette butts has, for the first time, publicly denied those claims and all other allegations that he mistreated recruits.
At a packed hearing of the Defence Forces Tribunal, the officer, known only as 2LTB, was asked to address the allegations against him.
They include allegedly getting recruits to dance with each other and sing nursery rhymes — including Silent Night — after a day of firing range training on June 20, 1991.
One recruit, Oliver Mullaney, is alleged to have been repeatedly humiliated by the officer — who cannot be named for legal reasons — and to have been ordered to dance on a chair before kissing other male recruits.
The tribunal has heard that the 19-year-old was so upset by the way he was treated that he took his own life two days later while on armed sentry duty at Devoy Barracks.
The officer, after a momentary pause, addressed the tribunal and said: “I respect the right of all persons to come to the tribunal. Persons have come with allegations of abuse.
“I don’t doubt their sincerity. I would regret any feelings they have.
“I do have to deny I mistreated any member of the 34th platoon or any other apprentice.”
Read full article by Neil Michael on the Irish Examiner website below.
The Women of Honour abuse survivor group has described as “deeply concerning” an assurance given by the Defence Forces that the legal costs of officers accused of wrongdoing would be covered.
Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins
The Irish Examiner has been shown a letter in which the Defence Forces assured the Association of Retired Commissioned Officers that their members would receive legal support if they had to appear before the Defence Forces Tribunal.
The assurance was given before any of the officers had even been notified by the tribunal legal team that they would be required to be witnesses.
The promise of support was made in October 2024 by then Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Sean Clancy, in response to questions around what support would be available to former officers likely to be called as witnesses.
The officers are understood to have included a number also referenced anonymously in the Independent Review Group Report of 2023, which detailed allegations of brutal and “sadistic” abuse of soldiers and included allegations of the rape of both male and female soldiers.
Diane Byrne, of the Women of Honour, said it is a concern that while their legal costs are so far not being covered on a regular basis, those of officers accused of abusing soldiers appear to have been covered.
She said: “The approach to funding and legal support continues to be deeply concerning. Institutions, senior figures, and even possible perpetrators have ongoing legal support publicly funded in real time.
“However, victims have no day-to-day funding or paid legal representation and are having to fight for a fair process. Any reimbursement that comes later does not address the reality that the work of engaging with the tribunal is happening now.
“Instead of focusing on recounting their experiences and assisting the tribunal to establish the truth, Women of Honour are having to focus on fair and equitable participation.”
Gavin Tobin, of the Air Corps Chemical Abuse Survivors, said: “There is complete inequality of arms at the tribunal. Perpetrators’ legal costs are looked after, the victims’ costs aren’t. That is not fair.”
Tribunal told recruits were constantly ordered to go on runs and do press-ups for hours on end while being shouted at and berated.
A training session two days before an army apprentice killed himself was “a day of horror” akin to the harrowing scenes of the infamous Full Metal Jacket movie by Stanley Kubrick, the Defence Forces Tribunal into historical claims of abuse has heard.
Eddie Gibbons, who was just 17 when he joined the Army Apprentice School in Devoy Barracks in Naas, in October 1989, said it was so surreal it resembled a scene from the Vietnam war movie.
The 1987 film is remembered for the performance of R Lee Ermey as the sadistic Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, who breaks US Marine Corps recruits with his relentless bullying and abuse.
Mr Gibbons said recruits were constantly ordered to go on runs and do press-ups for hours on end while being shouted at and berated.
The tribunal has already heard that, towards the end of that training session on June 20, 1991, apprentice Oliver Mullaney was ordered to sing nursery rhymes, dance with, and kiss other male recruits.
Mr Mullaney was just 20 months into his apprenticeship in the Defence Forces and was training to be a motor mechanic when he died on the evening of June 22, 1991.
Read full article by Neil Michael on the Irish Examiner website below.
