RACO Conference: New codes of practice for the management of Army personnel need not interfere with traditional "robust training" in the Defence Forces, officers were yesterday told.
Measures to tackle bullying and harassment and eliminate them from the Army were going through a "bedding-in process", the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers conference in Tralee heard yesterday.
Lieut Paul Allen, president of RACO, which represents some 1,300 officers in the Army, Air Corps and Naval Service, said ridicule or verbal abuse was no longer tolerated.
But this did not mean that "tough realistic training" could not take place, nor that officers in charge of physical training were not to be strident or emphatic in their instructions, he said.
Lieut Col Allen said proper exercise of command was not only acceptable but essential in a professional military force.
The move to reassure officers comes in the wake of what was described as "an unprecedented abusive attack" on an Internet website some weeks ago on a number of officers for doing their job.
The Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, said there was nothing inconsistent about good military management and taking care of the dignity of the individual.
The implementation of the reforms recommended in the Doyle report which set out ways of tackling bullying and harassment in the Defence Forces had the full and wholehearted support of the Chief-of-Staff and military people, Mr Smith said.