Grievances about non-selection for promotion, career courses and overseas service accounted for most of the cases investigated by the Ombudsman for the Defence Forces last year.
Paulyn Marrinan Quinn SC was appointed ombudsman in 2005 and published her first annual report yesterday.
She considered 26 cases for investigation last year and issued a decision in 16 cases. She found in favour of the complainant in 10 of these and partially upheld two cases while rejecting four others. The remaining 10 cases were still being considered at the end of the year.
Some 21 of the 26 cases related to grievances about promotion or lack of success in being posted overseas or getting approval for various courses.
The others related to administrative matters such as extension of service and the payment of allowances.
Ms Marrinan Quinn said she was pleased to see that new interview and selection procedures were introduced last July as a result of some of her first rulings. "To have played a role in encouraging such change is an important milestone for my office to have achieved in its first year of operation," she said.
The Ombudsman for the Defence Forces' office was established following concerns about bullying and harassment in the Defence Forces.
Ms Marrinan Quinn said there was an expectation that there would be several complaints about bullying or harassment but these had not yet materialised. "I'm fully cognisant of the fact that this was something that people expected, given the atmosphere that was prevailing," she said.
"But it's early days. . . for people to decide whether they are going to take that big step of coming forward with a case like that.
"It must be extremely difficult to come out when you are in an organisation, any kind of workplace, to allege those kind of serious allegations."
Defence Forces staff must first lodge a complaint through the internal "redress of wrongs" procedure before appealing to the ombudsman.
Some 76 internal complaints were made last year and 24 were forwarded to the ombudsman. Former Defence Forces members can refer complaints directly to the ombudsman. Complaints must be made within 12 months of the action happening, or within 12 months of becoming aware of the action.
Two of last year's complainants were women and their grievances related to promotional matters. Ms Marrinan Quinn said this figure was in line with the percentage of women in the Defence Forces.
She said her office had "very wide-reaching powers of investigation. The ombudsman can go anywhere, request to see any documentation or inspect anything.
"I would have every reason to be confident that the legislation is strong enough to deal with anything that might arise".
Ireland is the first European state to set up a civilian ombudsman office for the military. Ms Marrinan Quinn highlighted the work done by the late John Lucey, former general secretary of Pdforra, who had long campaigned for the establishment of such an office.
Meanwhile, consultant Dr Eileen Doyle said "remarkable progress" had been made since 2002 when she published her report highlighting the level of bullying and other unacceptable behaviour in the Defence Forces.
"The organisation is on a steep and very positive learning curve in terms of structures and so on," she said. "I won't name other organisations and workplaces in the country that could badly do with doing the same," she said.
