The point I would generally make to all the Deputies is to ask what the genesis of this is. Why are we bringing in legislation, part of which is establishing an external oversight body? It is because the independent review group recommended it. Why did the independent review group recommend it? What was the independent review group doing? It was investigating shocking behaviour, including misogyny, sexual assault and sexual abuse of members, female and male. I recall Deputy Cronin asking me during question time in …

-----to make a recommendation to create an independent oversight body with the Secretary General on it, by the way. There is a reason it is called independent oversight. The independent review body recommended that it be independent of the Defence Forces, whether we like it or not. That was the recommendation. When it came out and was published, every one of the Opposition Deputies was in full high dudgeon and said that never again should this happen and never again should we allow something like this to happen. I …

I am not so sure you are. You say you are, but when we try to do something practical about it, you find other reasons about it and start getting Jesuitical about the public service management-----

-----and the separation between the Chief of Staff and Secretary General. There is another agenda here. There is an anti-Secretary General agenda. There is an anti-Department agenda.

I am not saying Deputy Howlin has it, but it is in the ether.

The Deputy has been around a long time too. I have noticed that the train of thought in this debate has been the Department on one hand and military on the other.

I am sorry; it is there.

It is there. It is there in all of this debate.

That is why I believe in this. I agree with the Deputy on the need for more comprehensive legislation to demarcate properly the roles of a chief of defence forces, CHOD, in its entirety and, as Deputy Berry said, equality of status among the heads of services. I agree with all that. That has to be done. However, there is a dangerous trend emerging, even from some of the representative bodies. When representations are made to me, it is almost as if the civilian wing, if you like, cannot have one up on the other wing…

That is out there. The Deputy might say it is not, but it is out there. I am sorry to say it, but-----

I beg your pardon?

I am not saying it is the Deputy's intention at all. I said it is out there in terms of representations that have been made on this issue.

The whole train of thought has been around the idea that if the Secretary General is on it, the Chief of Staff should be on it, or the representative bodies should be on it.

That is not the way I look at it. It is as if the Department is at loggerheads with the Defence Forces and it should not be. That should not be the frame around which the debate happens. There is an element of that happening in this context. This has been a relentless campaign about undermining the Secretary General's role on the oversight body. I regret that it has come to this. We have to go back to the origins of this in particular. I did not invent this or come up with this idea. The independent review body did…

However, no one did mention them.

I do not.

Sorry, I was not referring to the oversight group. It was the independent review group that was commented on negatively.

I did not mean that in any negative way.

That is the point of all of this. That is the point of what we are trying to do.

Deputy Boyd Barrett has made the argument. Maybe people can see there is an element of frustration. The bottom line is victims were not mentioned in this debate. They were not mentioned on Committee Stage either, to any great extent.