Defence Forces Tribunal to rule on Women of Honour access to military documents

The Defence Forces Tribunal is set to rule on Friday on whether the Women of Honour victims’ group is being “robbed of an entitlement” to documentation provided to the tribunal, as argued by its legal representation.

The group has applied for greater access. Their senior counsel, Mark Harty, said they were “being asked to play Only Connect without knowing all the pieces in the sequence”, having previously had greater access to the evidence in front of the tribunal.

The “limited representation” means the only parties with full access will be the Defence Forces and Department of Defence.

He said the tribunal was attempting to make an “analysis of complaints” on a “systemic” basis and the victims’ group – established to represent the interests of all affected members of the forces – could point to these systemic issues.

He said the group had identified “startling similarities” in underlying facts that arose in several people’s experiences through its current access, and that they “can assist the tribunal further if we have that full representation”.

“I won’t say we are best placed to identify all the systemic issues, [but] different people see different patterns in different ways,” he said.

Tribunal barrister Niall Beirne doubted whether giving full document access to the group would comply with victims’ data rights.

He said an unrepresented victim would soon give evidence to the tribunal of having been “raped, sexually assaulted, bullied and harassed and court-martialled in questionable circumstances” and he questioned whether the person’s information should be shared with the group.

In a lengthy submission, Diarmaid McGuinness for the Department of Defence, commended the Women of Honour group for their work in raising the issue in the Defence Forces but said it was a matter for the tribunal to determine whether to give a “legal entitlement” to access.

He said about 180 people had consented to their identifiable information being shared, with a further 250 having redacted information given to the tribunal.

McGuinness said these individuals would not have known their consent could allow the Women of Honor to get access to the unredacted documents which included litigation, medical records and “sensitive personal information”.

He also argued that counsel for the tribunal itself “represents the public” in the matter.

The Defence Forces’ counsel, Darren Lehane, echoed the confidentiality risk.

Gareth Compton on behalf of more than 115 current and former victims, had concerns in relation to the confidentiality of the process and a desire to mitigate any delays in the tribunal – due to the potential for additional reviewing and redaction of material before the group’s legal representation being given access.

He suggested some of the issues raised by Harty amounted to logistics and “objected to the release of our clients’ confidential information” but noted it was the tribunal’s decision.

PDFORRA, the representative body for enlisted members, also raised concerns, noting some of its clients did not wish for their information to be shared.

Judge Ann Power said it had been a “long day” of evidence at the tribunal and she would consider the submissions overnight.