Tribunal may trigger Garda probe into historic child abuse claims

The Defence Forces Tribunal could lead to a Garda investigation into historic child abuse, it has emerged.

Denis “Max” Kennedy, on their way in to give evidence at the Defence Forces Tribunal. Picture: Neil Michael.

The tribunal heard that Tusla, the child and family agency, has recommended that assaults and abuse allegedly carried out by officers should be reported to gardaí.

Ms Justice Ann Power, the sole member of the tribunal, was told by Denis Kennedy they had been instructed to inform gardaí about what had happened, as it was considered “child abuse”.

Mr Kennedy, who joined aged 16 in September 1989, said he had been encouraged to contact a therapist to discuss the alleged abuse he endured at Devoy Barracks in the 1980s and 1990s.

After he gave his evidence on Thursday, he was asked whether he had ever considered making a formal complaint about his treatment.

He said his therapist had gone to Tusla, which informed her that his experience constituted “historic child abuse”.

Mr Kennedy told the judge: “She recommended it be reported to gardaí.”

After giving evidence, he told the Irish Examiner: “I am going to wait to get the tribunal out of the way.

“This is all very new and as this is what has been recommended, this is what I am now considering doing.

“But I am unlikely to be the only one.”

There were 13 16-year-olds in the 54th Platoon, 22 17-year-olds, and 20 recruits aged 18.

Read full article by Neil Michael at the Irish Examiner website below.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41868969.html

*****

Delay – Deny – Die

‘I walked into hell’: Recruit tells Defence Forces Tribunal of being ‘tortured, not trained’

Recruits to the Defence Forces’ Apprentice School in the 1980s and 1990s were “tortured, not trained”, the Defence Forces Tribunal has been told.

Recalling the day he joined the 54th Platoon at Devoy Barracks in Naas, Co Kildare, in September 1989 at the age of 16, Denis Kennedy said: “I walked into hell.”

He told the tribunal he witnessed a senior officer — known as 2Lt B and who cannot be named for legal reasons — assaulting him and other recruits, including kicking a fellow recruit in the ribs as he did press-ups.

He also said he saw the officer order another recruit to eat cigarettes from “the dregs of an ashtray”.

One of Mr Kennedy’s closest friends, Oliver Mullaney, died by suicide on June 22, 1991, two days after allegedly being repeatedly humiliated by 2Lt B.

Previous witnesses to the tribunal have said 2Lt B ordered Mr Mullaney to not only dance on a chair but also kiss another recruit.

Mr Kennedy said the abuse was widely known about, telling tribunal senior counsel Michael Cush that more senior officers above 2Lt B would have been aware.

“They would have been well aware,” he said.

“They were watching, they were well aware.”

Asked about the most senior rank to have known, he said it was the “commanding officer” — meaning at least a lieutenant colonel.

The tribunal later heard that the unnamed commanding officer has denied being aware of the abuse suffered by Mr Mullaney.

Read full article by Neil Michael at the Irish Examiner website below.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41868969.html

*****

Delay – Deny – Die

Defence Forces Tribunal hears about officer’s ‘out-of-the-world, excessive’ abuse of recruits

An army officer alleged to have forced one recruit to eat “smoking” cigarette butts also allegedly had cigarettes forced into the ears and nostrils of another recruit, the Defence Forces Tribunal has heard.

Gerard Guinan, General Secretary of PDFORRA, recalled an alleged incident by an officer who forced one recruit to eat ‘smoking’ cigarette butts also allegedly had cigarettes forced into the ears and nostrils of another recruit. File photo: Paul Mealey

Recruits were allegedly encouraged by the officer to laugh and photograph the incidents.

Tribunal witness Gerard Guinan, who enlisted in 1989 and joined the 34th Platoon at the Apprentice School in Devoy Barracks, recalled: “He was encouraging people to laugh and jeer. Looking back, it was Lord of the Flies.

“You were just happy it wasn’t you being laughed at.”

Mr Guinan, who is now the general security of the representative body PDFORRA, referenced this among a number of “out-of-the-world, excessive” abuse of recruits by an officer, who can only be referenced as 2Lt B.

There were so many incidents that recruits, who Mr Guinan referred to as “child soldiers” because most were aged between 16 and 18, couldn’t wait to get home at weekends.

Once, when a rumour swept through the platoon that weekend leave was to be withdrawn because one recruit had failed to “keep up on a run”, recruits ran for the front gate before it could be confirmed officially.

”We all ran for the gate, but when we got to the gate, they closed the gate,” Mr Guinan recalled.

He recalled an incident that emerged in an earlier tribunal hearing which saw recruit Padraic Lenaghan being allegedly ordered to eat cigarette buts. This was after the officer 2Lt B caught recruits smoking in their dormitory.

Mr Guinan recalled how some of the cigarettes had been half-stubbed out seconds before the officer found them in an ashtray under Mr Lenaghan’s bed and were still smoking.

Mr Guinan recalled: “2Lt B told him to take out the ashtray, which had cigarettes still smoking.

”He told him ‘take a butt out, put it in your mouth, chew it and swallow it’.

He then told him to open his mouth and he then told him to take out two more cigarettes and to swallow them.

Mr Guinan also recalled fellow apprentice Oliver Mullaney being subjected to “a lot of petty bullshit” and “really personalised abuse” two days before he killed himself.

Read full article by Neil Michael at the Irish Examiner website below.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41867724.html

*****

Delay – Deny – Die

Former army apprentice tells tribunal he was forced to eat cigarette butts by officer

The alleged behaviour of 2Lt B was considered at length by the tribunal, which is currently meeting in public to investigate the complaints processes within the Defence Forces, and whether their possible ineffectiveness enabled a culture of silence on complaints of abuse

A former army apprentice broke down as he recalled being forced to eat cigarette butts by an officer, and how he saw one of his fellow cadets crying in his bed before he later took his own life.

Padraic Lenaghan, a former radio technician cadet at the Army Apprentice School at Devoy Barracks in Naas, told the Defence Forces Tribunal how the unnamed second lieutenant — known as 2Lt B — swore in his face and ordered him to eat used cigarette butts from an ashtray after discovering a card game in progress at the apprentices’ dormitory in November 1989.

Mr Lenaghan recounted to the tribunal concerted abusive behaviour — bullying, random revoking of weekend leave, and emotional abuse by 2Lt B from his induction into the school at the age of 16.

Of the cigarette incident, Mr Lenaghan recalled 2Lt B entering the dormitory and screaming at him to eat the butts.

“He said put them in your effing mouth, that’s an order. He had a wild, wild look on his face. He said ‘chew Lenaghan’. I just felt if I didn’t the whole platoon will be in so much trouble. It’s the army,” he said.

“I could feel the ashes all around my mouth on my tongue. I got some of them down. He said eat the rest of them. I was just scared like, and feeling so sick, I hid them under my tongue when he got me to open my mouth.”

He said when the officer eventually left he “went to the toilet and got sick”.

On the death of apprentice and Leitrim native Oliver Mullaney, aged 19, in 1991, Mr Lenaghan described how the platoon of 53 teenagers was made to dance after a gun-range examination one Thursday.

“They made some of them dance together. It was weird, what was the purpose,” he said. “They got on Ollie’s case, up close in his face, roaring and shouting, ‘Mullaney you’re a real old farmer, you’ll never be a soldier’.

“Ollie was a quiet country man, he wasn’t taking it well. I recall Ollie crying in his bed that night. I didn’t see him again.”

Mr Mullaney shot himself with his own weapon that weekend in the barracks. Mr Lenaghan said there had been no investigation into the incident that he was aware of, though shortly after 2Lt B left the unit.

“Everyone was 100% sure the pressure of this man 2Lt B was too much for Ollie,” he said. He said no apprentice had been willing to make a complaint at the time as “being in the army and making complaints didn’t go together for us”.

He said even if he had wanted to complain he wouldn’t have known how.

Read full article by Cianan Brennan at the Irish Examiner website below.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41864532.html

*****

Delay – Deny – Die

Defence Forces colonel denies apprentices were ‘terrified’ at training school

A senior officer has told the Defence Forces tribunal that he was surprised to hear apprentices would have been too “terrified” to complain about conditions in the apprentice school.

Generic Stock Defence Forces, action, training, soldiers, Air Corps (UJuly 2020)

The Defence Forces Apprentice School was like a “family”, Colonel Fred O’Donovan told Friday’s hearing.

The veteran of missions in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Chad, Kosovo and Brussels was responding to questions from the tribunal judge Ms Justice Ann Power.

“It depends on the context but I would be surprised if it happened in my time,” Mr O’Donovan said of the school, which closed in 1998. “Not everyone is perfect but we do do our best.”

Earlier, Ms Power had also questioned Mr O’Donovan — who trained recruits at the school between 1995 and 1998 — about his statement that apprentices could “confront the person causing harm” to them.

On a previous day, it had emerged that a teenage Defence Forces apprentice’s death in 1991 at Devoy Barracks in Co Kildare was regarded as suicide within his platoon. As well as investigating his death, the Defence Forces had also investigated a complaint Oliver Mullaney had been mistreated by a superior officer just days before he died.

The bombshell revelation by Colonel Damien Coakley was the first time it had ever been made public that there were two Defence Forces investigations into Mr Mullaney’s death, and that it could have been caused by anything other than an accident.

Ms Justice Power had asked Mr O’Donovan what he would tell apprentices to do if they were not happy with the way a superior officer was testing them.

To his reply that he would tell them to “confront” the superior officer, the judge asked him if that was really a realistic course of action.

He replied: “Probably not.” But he added that, in his time, “there were no real issues” and there was a good “bond” between apprentices and their senior officers.

Read full article by Neil Michael at the Irish Examiner website below.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41857569.html

*****

Delay – Deny – Die

Teenage Defence Forces apprentice’s death in 1991 was regarded as suicide within his platoon, tribunal hears

A teenage Defence Forces apprentice’s death in 1991, treated officially as an “accident”, was regarded as suicide within his platoon, it has been revealed.

04/06/2026 Dublin Irish leinster Ireland. Photo shows Col Damien Coakley arriving at the Defences Forces Tribunal taking place at the Infinity Building in Smithfield Dublin into claims of the culture surrounding the making of complaints of abuse. The tribunal is focusing on complaints processes in the Defence Forces spanning over four decades, from 1983 to 2024. Photo: Leah Farrell/© RollingNews.ie

It has also emerged that, as well as investigating his death, the Defence Forces had also investigated a complaint Oliver Mullaney had been mistreated by a superior officer just days before he died.

The head of the Defence Force’s military police revealed the existence of the two investigations into Mr Mullaney’s death to tribunal lawyers when they interviewed him last month.

The revelation by Colonel Damien Coakley is the first time it has ever been made public there were two Defence Forces investigations into Mr Mullaney’s death and that it could have been caused by anything other than an accident.

Under cross examination by the tribunal’s senior counsel Michael Cush, the Irish forces provost marshal and director of military police told tribunal investigators he had become aware of “certain issues” around the death of Mr Mullaney in 1991.

He said he discovered there were two investigations into the 19-year-old’s death.

He found this out after he had been instructed by the tribunal to look into the investigation of Mr Mullaney’s death.

Mr Cush said: “In assisting the Defence Forces prepare for this tribunal, you became aware there were, in fact, two separate military police investigations in relation to the death of [Mr Mullaney]”.

Read full article by Neil Michael at the Irish Examiner website below.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41856930.html

*****

Delay – Deny – Die

A young military apprentice died in Co Kildare 35 years ago. Now a tribunal is investigating his death

Oliver Mullaney (19) had been in the military for only 20 months at time of his death at Devoy Barracks in Naas

The death of a 19-year-old apprentice at a Defence Forces barracks some 35 years ago is being examined by a tribunal into complaints of abuse within the military.

The Defence Forces tribunal is about to make an order for discovery of all military files relating to the death of Private Oliver Mullaney, an apprentice who died at Devoy Barracks in Naas on June 22nd, 1991.

Mullaney was a trainee motor mechanic who had been in the Defence Forces for only 20 months at the time of his death. He was from Sheffield, a townland just outside Leitrim village that was known as “Sheafield” at the time of his death. His parents were Joseph and Mary Mullaney, and he had three brothers and two sisters.

On the night of Saturday, June 22nd, Mullaney was on sentry duty at Devoy Barracks, which served as the Army apprentice school from the 1950s until it closed in 1998.

At about 9.15pm, three gunshots were heard. Mullaney suffered a head wound and died instantly. The fatal shots came from Mullaney’s own gun, a Steyr 5.56mm assault rifle. Reports in local and national newspapers the next week said the Army was treating his death as accidental.

It was reported at the time that the Army would hold an internal inquiry into the 19-year-old’s death, with an investigation also launched by gardaí at Naas. There is no record of the inquiry’s findings ever being made public.

A spokesman for the Defence Forces said: “Óglaigh na hÉireann is committed in its full support and co-operation with the tribunal of inquiry. However, as this matter is currently before the tribunal, it would be inappropriate to provide a comment.”

Read the full article by Ellen Coyne of the Irish Times below.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/02/10/death-of-young-defence-forces-apprentice-in-1991-examined-by-tribunal/