Ex-helicopter pilot Lieut Gen Seán Clancy faces hardest rescue mission in reforming Defence Forces

In the spectacular surrounds of Collins Barracks, off Dublin’s north quays, the sound of the Army band fills the air at the Commissioning Ceremony of the 98th Cadet Class. For the young officers being commissioned, this is the biggest day of their careers to date, one they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. Their brass and leather adorned dress uniforms are pristine; razor-sharp trouser creases with brown shoes polished to dazzle.

As their tense limbs march and salute their way through the ceremony they make for an impressive sight – lean and fit to boot. These 43 new additions to the elite ranks in the Defence Forces are called upon one-by-one, many proud parents looking on, to accept the congratulations of the Tánaiste, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence, Micheál Martin.

It looks and sounds like business as usual – another group of young officers to replenish the ranks that command all of the men and women of Óglaigh na hÉireann. But today is different. It’s the day after the Independent Review Group (IRG) published its damning findings that blew up the carefully cultivated image of the Defence Forces.

Under former High Court judge, Ms Justice Bronagh O’Hanlon, it exposed a toxic culture. Female personnel were “barely tolerated”. Some had been targeted for having babies, photographed without their permission in the showers and raped or otherwise sexually assaulted, at times after having their drinks spiked. Senior officers sometimes groomed new recruits, asking them for sexual favours. Physical violence was part of the military’s training. There was a classist culture where the “lower ranks” were denigrated so they could never challenge the control enjoyed by officers, “the elites”.

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The report’s authors acknowledged there were many talented and committed men and women serving in the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps. However, they also made clear the problems were cultural – running through, and perpetuated by, the Defence Forces for years. This was not about bad apples that needed to be found and removed. It was about the fabric of the organisation.

When asked about the report’s findings, Defence Forces Chief of Staff, Lieut Gen Seán Clancy, said he had never personally experienced the issues highlighted. This was because both he and the people he “encountered” during his military career had all been “fortunate”. Those words – from a near 40-year Defence Forces veteran who presided over human resources and the military police at one time – raised eyebrows, quickly joined by doubting voices.

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The Women of Honour group, whose allegations led to the IRG process being established in 2021, found the remarks “hard to believe”. Senator Tom Clonan, a former Army officer who exposed sexual assaults in the Defence Forces in 2000, described the comments as a “very bad start” and “not a credible position”. Speaking, like Clonan, under legal privilege in the Seanad, Senator Regina Doherty said Lieut Gen Clancy’s comments were “one of the most worrying things that I saw” in the news headlines on Wednesday.

However, some former officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, insisted this week they had also never encountered the issues highlighted by the IRG. A number said they had never even heard the language used in the report – beasting, mobbing, tubbing – to describe punishments meted out to Defence Forces members.

For his part, Lieut Gen Clancy also said he accepted the IRG report. He was “not afraid of if” and viewed it as an opportunity for reform. That change process, he said, was clearly needed and he was fully committed to it. He also accepted he and his senior staff needed external, civilian expertise to help execute the change required.

Military sources told The Irish Times Lieut Gen Clancy was the choice of both his predecessor, Vice Admiral Mark Mellett, and the Department of Defence, for the chief of staff’s post in 2021. One said he was “very ambitious for his own career, to advance” while another described him as “a company man down to his finger nails”. Others said he was “cheerful” and had always been “well got” in the military or “clubbable in the context of the Defence Fences”.

“He looks the part – he’s good looking, chiselled and he can fly a helicopter, he was the poster boy for the Air Corps,” said one.

Other sources said many personnel in the Army resented the fact Vice Admiral Mellett, a former head of the Naval Service, had become chief of staff in 2015 in advance of candidates from the Army. They added the same resentment, from some quarters, applies to Lieut Gen Clancy. In the Army, the sources said, candidates from the Naval Service or Air Corps for the post of chief of staff were regarded as having less experience, especially in governance, than their colleagues in the Army.

“The Army is a bigger organisation and coming from the Naval Service or Air Corps, those guys have never been a unit commander overseas, for example. And that’s where you do a huge amount of your learning under pressure, even if you have what could be called a quiet tour,” said another.

Before being appointed chief of staff in late 2021, Lieut Gen Clancy had been deputy chief of staff, in charge of support, for two years. In that role he was responsible for logistics, human resources, transport, engineering and military policing.

A married father of three from Mitchelstown, Cork, he joined the Defence Forces as a cadet in 1984 after his Leaving Cert. He spent most of his career in the Air Corps as a helicopter pilot, in search and rescue. He was appointed general officer commanding the Air Corps in 2017. Some sources said his promotion from commanding the Air Corps to Defence Forces deputy chief of staff in charge of support was an unconventional promotion. Though not critical of Lieut Gen Clancy about that promotion, they said the move was regarded in some quarters as a rushed form of advancement and one that skipped vital steps that might have stood him in better stead for the challenges now ahead.

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There is no doubt Lieut Gen Clancy is now under extreme pressure, the focus on his comments of this week not helping. The organisation he leads – which presents itself as one big centre of excellence heralded internationally for its peace-keeping abilities – has taken a huge hit this week. And things are only set to get worse and more complicated.

Martin has described the IRG’s report as a “scoping exercise” for the statutory inquiry to come into the Defence Forces. That process is likely to drill into the details – specific incidents – of crimes and other abuses covered much more generally by the IRG. Names will be named and the actions of some of the military’s big beasts may come under very close scrutiny, especially around inaction in investigating serious complaints.

Unlike other organs of the State, the Defence Forces is a secretive and independent republic. It is founded on the concepts of rank and discipline, with almost no outside oversight. It even has its own police force and courts, with its officers as barristers, judges and juries. The fact it now faces the public glare of a statutory inquiry represents an unprecedented loss of control, a development it could never have imagined just a few years ago. At that inquiry, many of its accusers will be women, already with a lot of the public’s sympathy and support, alleging they were sexually attacked and gender-targeted, something the Defence Forces, by accepting the IRG report, has already conceded happened.

One thing is clear. By the time Lieut Gen Clancy’s term as Chief of Staff expires, assuming it runs its full course, the Defence Forces will be unrecognisable. The major change is likely to be the sheer scale of external scrutiny it is about to be exposed to, which could spin in any direction. And that scrutiny, by civilian structures, will probably become permanent. After the statutory inquiry, and possible criminal prosecutions, there will be new structures put in place akin to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission and Garda Inspectorate developed for the Garda force after some of its major scandals, though even they cannot come close to what the IRG has already uncovered in the Defence Forces.

Whether Lieut Gen Clancy has the governance skills and capacity to lead the changes required will be tested very shortly. He has 4,600 hours of flight time as both a pilot and instructor on fixed wing and helicopters. At least he knows how to strap himself in for a bumpy ride on a hazardous rescue mission.