The Defence Forces say they are "satisfied" with procedures for dealing with complaints from women who suffer alleged sexual harassment, bullying or discrimination.
However, a theme running through the findings of four years of research by a former Army captain, Tom Clonan, for his doctoral thesis in communications for Dublin City University (DCU), was that women soldiers who suffered abuses felt there was no adequate way of complaining.
Mr Clonan, who retired from the Army last year after 11 years, served with the Irish Battalion in the Lebanon during the 1996 Israeli bombardment of south Lebanon. Before he retired he worked in the Defence Forces press office. He carried out research for his PhD part-time while serving in the Army.
Mr Clonan, who is now a lecturer in communications at the Institute of Technology Tallaght (ITT), reported that 12 of the 60 women soldiers he interviewed for his thesis said they had been the victims of a sexual assault in the workplace.
"The nature of the alleged assaults ranged from touching, to allegations of attempted rape and rape. All of the women interviewed were critical of the manner in which the Army handles such incidents," he writes in the thesis, which has been seen by The Irish Times. He quotes two women on this issue both stating they believed they could not get redress when they complained to senior male officers about what was happening to them.
In a section of his thesis entitled Remarks of a sexually explicit nature, Mr Clonan wrote: "Of the 43 women I interviewed in Ireland, 18 of those gave accounts of incidents in which remarks of a sexually explicit and offensive nature were made to them. Of the 17 women interviewed in the Lebanon, 10 mentioned such incidents. This total of 28 out of 60 of the population sampled represents almost half of those surveyed."
One interviewee said: "One guy, I walked into his office and he was reading a porno magazine. He showed it to me and said, I bet you'd be good at this. Some of the remarks people make are downright nasty. It's debilitating overseas. It's downright dangerous. Some of the women I know, especially the vulnerable ones, would be suicide risks."
Of the 28 incidents mentioned in this section of the thesis on sexually explicit remarks, 26 of them involved a person senior in rank to the interviewee.
Verbal obscenity towards women recruits was also a common theme of Mr Clonan's document. One soldier said: "During the training, one of the NCOs [non-commissioned officers] just had a major problem with females, not one of us, all of us. When we'd be out for a run, he'd say, `All right, girls, which one of you is going to drop out today?' "
Another said: "The younger women are experiencing a lot of sexual harassment. The lid is going to blow off this. There's a terrible fear of complaining, though. You know. They'll say: `If they can't hack the hassle from the lads, then they're not fit to be a soldier.' "
Commenting on her training, another woman said: "When I was a second lieutenant, I had (ranked senior officer) who would ask me if I was wearing a bra. He told me he preferred it when women didn't wear a bra. Also, after coffee one day, he got the adjutant to ask me not to cross my legs at coffee as it distracted the commandants."
On a similar theme, another said: "The adjutant in my first unit told me to go to the quartermaster and get a tighter jumper. He said it would show off my figure better."
The most serious complaints recorded in the thesis concerned alleged rape, attempted rape, rough treatment of a sexual nature, harassment and the compulsive behaviour of some male soldiers towards women in junior ranks.
One woman said: "As recruits, we had to live in, there was nowhere else to go to socialise and relax. Except you couldn't relax. One guy came into my room at 3 a.m. and tried to sleep with me. I had him charged. We had gone to the (ranked official) about him before. We'd warned him about this guy before. Nothing was done. They wouldn't give us a lock. Nobody tried to stop it.
"He ended up being charged with being out of bounds or some other minor thing. He got away with it. It took two years and two attacks on females before he was allowed to go on voluntary discharge."
Another said: "One NCO in particular couldn't take no for an answer. We got a night pass. We bumped into the NCOs. That guy came on very strong. I told him no way. He made the slit your throat sign and said, wait till Monday. He gave me a hard time after that.
"He obviously couldn't handle rejection very well. I had a serious incident with him in the gas chamber. He was inside. He came over and told me to take the mask off. I said no. He ripped the mask off my face. I was coughing and retching. He grabbed me by the neck and kicked me out the door. This incident was reported by a male colleague. "I was paraded by the platoon commander and asked if I wanted to make a complaint. But after what happened, I was so scared I said no."
Another said: "I've had a lot of harassment overseas. I've had two serious incidents. One involved an officer [who] tried to kiss me. I told him to stop. He told me if that's the way I wanted to play it, I'd be going home on Chalk One [two weeks earlier than she was due to return, thereby forfeiting two weeks' overseas allowances]. When I blew him out like that I found from then on it was: `You can't do this, you can't do that'. I feel like saying it at my annual confidential. But I've everything to lose. I'd never get overseas again."
Another said: "I was the new second lieutenant in barracks. I was so young, around 20. There was the usual slieveen there, a captain. He's a commandant now. He made a completely unwelcome move on me. It happened on my first night as orderly officer. "I was so proud of myself mounting and dismounting the guard. Then this happened. He took complete advantage of his rank and my innocence. When I think of it now, what he did to me. He completely undermined me."
Of the 65 women interviewed, 37 brought up the subject of offensive graffiti. Much of it involved imputations of a sexual nature against women soldiers.
One woman said: "You get a lot of graffiti in the magazine [ammunition depot]. Like `X did the entire third battalion'. `If you want a ride, call X in the orderly room.' You just have to put up with it. No one will own up to it, and the company sergeant will say he's more `important' things to be doing."
Another said: "When we were doing our recruit training there was a poster put out. It had the five of us on it naked from the waist up. It had an NCO shouting at us, `We do all the nagging here.' It was left up all day. That night during details [cleaning offices, training areas, etc], we tore them down. The next day, the [named ranked official] warned us that it was an offence to interfere with or otherwise deface a unit notice board."
A woman cadet said: "I had a bad time in [named barracks]. It started with obscene things written on my pigeon hole [mail box]. I complained. Then someone started drawing obscene things on my door. I repainted the door myself, more than once. But it only got worse. I got a name then for rocking the boat. Some of my classmates still won't talk to me."
Mr Clonan's investigations found that exposure to pornographic images in the workplace was common. He wrote: "Of the 43 women interviewed at home, 29 stated that they had been in a workplace situation, i.e. a guardroom, canteen, mess, or recreation room where a pornographic film was being played. One said: "I was on stand-to. I was told to go out on the beat, there's a film we want to watch. So I went. But I would be very uncomfortable about it. You know, on duty with 12 guys watching a porno movie. But you say nothing. It's hard enough to be one of the lads, but if you cause ripples, in the long run you'll only get a bad name for yourself. So you forget about it."
Some 26 women reported having been subjected to obscene phone calls, or having received obscene/nuisance mail in the workplace. Eight of the women interviewed reported having been in receipt of "nuisance" mail and telephone calls.
"Curiously, all eight were officers," Mr Clonan wrote. "These letters and calls were all from senior officers and consisted mainly of inappropriate overtures and were not obscene in nature. Five of the women interviewed named one particular individual officer who would send them photographs of himself along with outline proposals of friendship with a view to relationship and possible marriage. Three of these women complained about this matter to their superiors. Two of these were subsequently paraded by their commanding officers and warned of the dire consequences of making such an allegation about a senior officer."
Mr Clonan quoted one of the subjects of this behaviour: "I've had poetry written, invitations to lunch, even phone calls to home from a senior officer." This was, she said, a senior officer with whom she had a direct working relationship.
"I was pestered by this guy for months. I couldn't believe it was happening. I did not experience any support from my CO in this regard. I was actually paraded by him after I approached him on the matter. He informed me that I should be aware that it is an offence under military law to make a false allegation against a superior. He told me to think long and hard about it. Now, lest there be any confusion here, this wasn't friendly advice, this was a threat. The army doesn't try to deal with these problems. It's more inclined to cover them up."
Women also expressed considerable frustration over being unable to get boots to fit them and about uniforms, particularly dress skirts, that set them out from other soldiers.
During the early days of female recruitment to the Defence Forces women officer cadets were sent on dress and deportment courses, including instruction on putting on eye-shadow. "It did wonders for Lancome," one said. "The day before we were commissioned - they sent us loads of samples. I've stayed with them since. But we were very upset too doing `walking' classes when we felt we were soldiers."