Minister vows to Force up number of women in Army

Martin’s ‘zero tolerance’ for bullying

NEW Defence Minister Micheal Martin has vowed to make the military more appealing to women.

The ex-taoiseach is determined to change the culture with a “zero tolerance” policy against bullying and sexual abuse as extremely low numbers of new female recruits are joining up.

He revealed by the end of last year just 7% of our Defence Forces, 564 members out of 7,987, were women.

Out of these 456 were in the Army, 65 in the Navy and 43 in the Air Corps. But in three general service recruitment campaigns in 2022 only 11% of the applicants were women along with 14% of those who applied to become a Cadet.

The minister confirmed the Forces have hired a and media partner to assist with recruitment advertising that will engage and appeal to women.

They are also going to set up special female recruitment teams. A special Gender Officer at Colonel level is also to be appointed and more female officers promoted to General Staff.

However, Tanaiste Martin warned: “A key element of any successful organisation is that its members can undertake their work in an environment undermarketing pinned by dignity, equality and respect. From the extensive engagements with both serving and former members of the Defence Forces, it is all too clear that despite the reforms of the past 20 years, the systems, policies and procedures for dealing with unacceptable behaviour have not, and are not serving all Defence Force personnel well.

“The Judge-led Independent Review Group established on January 25, 2022, has been examining policies and procedures for dealing with issues relating to bullying, discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the Defence Forces as well as the prevailing workplace culture.”