Defence Forces Dail Éireann — 2024-07-02 ============================================================ Réada Cronin (SF), Kildare North The State came to a standstill with disgust and disbelief last week when a member of the Defence Forces walked free from court following the brutal assault on Natasha O'Brien. Another man had his career protected while another woman was failed by the State. I am glad to see the DPP has appealed the sentence. I do not want to give the Ceann Comhairle a heart attack or anything like that but the ruling was given by the Judiciary. While it is really welcome that the DPP is looking at it again, the fact that a spokesperson for the Defence Forces was in the court is something we have to look at. People were revolted by the fact that a senior officer gave a glowing account of Mr. Crotty's service record. I believe that is something that----- --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2024-07-02/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:53:08+00:00 Sitting date: 2024-07-02