A criminal investigation into allegations of sexual abuse within the Defence Forces has been announced by the Garda Commissioner.
Drew Harris said gardaí had received 26 complaints so far dating back to the 1960s, but expected to receive more, and encouraged victims to come forward.
He also said the investigation, being led by the National Protective Services Bureau, was independent of the military authorities and that there may be predators and victims of multiple offences in the Defence Forces.
He was speaking last night at the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors conference in Galway.
The Defence Forces has welcomed the announcement and said it will assist gardaí if required.
The report of the Independent Review Group (IRG), which identified verbal, physical, psychological and sexual abuse of women in the Defence Forces, has resulted in the establishment of this investigation.
The commissioner said they had been in discussions with the military authorities prior to the IRG report, but that this was the "prudent action" to take in terms of being ready to receive complaints of serious sexual assault.
Complaints
Commissioner Harris announced at the AGSI conference that while the garda operation was being coordinated at a national level by the National Protective Services Bureau, victims could make complaints to their local divisional protective services bureau where trained detectives, with the necessary specialist skills, would take statements and conduct inquiries.
The commissioner said there would be a national oversight and coordination and a sharing of information in terms of progressing the separate investigations.
Detectives would have to take into account that victims may have been victimised and attacked on a number of occasions.
He also said there may be predators in the Defence Forces and investigators want to make sure that if individuals are accused of multiple offences, that all the evidence is gathered and sent to the DPP.
"An ex member of the Defence Forces who has a complaint can go to any division, we would encourage them to do," Commissioner Harris said.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Commissioner Harris said what has been revealed in recent years would suggest that there are far more complaints to come forward.
"But we would say to anyone who wishes to make a complaint, come forward to us, and we will receive your complaint and investigate it," he said.
The commissioner said that there is an issue in respect of garda jurisdiction but this is being examined and any legislative amendment will be sought if necessary.
"There is legislation then back to 2004, which did extend jurisdiction in terms of criminal matters.
"We want to just clarify that precisely to make sure that that can be retrospective and does apply to serious sexual offending. So that's something that we're addressing at the moment," he said.
Commissioner Harris insisted that An Garda Síochána is a victim-centred organisation, and that protection of victims is paramount.
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The Defence Forces issued a statement welcoming "this new operation" set up by An Garda Síochána and said it fully supports this initiative.
It also said the Defence Forces Military Police Corps stand ready to assist gardaí if required at any stage, but the Garda Commissioner has said the military police are not involved in the investigations.
In a statement An Garda Síochána said it is "examining all files held in relation to allegations of sexual assault within the Defence Forces, both currently under investigation and pre-existing".
"In response to the report of the 'Independent Review Group - Defence Forces' An Garda Síochána has established a dedicated operation under Detective Chief Superintendent Garda National Protective Services Bureau to oversee all Garda investigations into allegations of sexual assault within the Defence Forces, historical, current or future," it said.
"Speaking this week the Garda Commissioner has referenced 26 files that An Garda Síochána is currently aware of. All of these 26 files pre-date the IRG-DF report and span a period from current date to the 1960s.
"Where Individual allegations are made by former or serving members of the Defence Forces to An Garda Síochána, all allegations will be investigated by Divisional Protective Service Units, under the oversight of the GNPSB.
"Any person can request to speak with a member from a DPSU in confidence by contacting any Garda Station or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111."
Women of Honour
The Women of Honour - a group of former Defence Forces members who have brought forward allegations of abuse, harassment and discrimination in the military - said they welcome the Garda Commissioner's decision to set up a predators' unit for the Defence Forces. However, they said "it is shameful that this is only happening now".
In a statement, they said they only heard from the Garda Investigation Unit today, "after two years and have requested a meeting with Commissioner Harris".
They said now that the commissioner has highlighted the matter, they will be seeking that the Statutory Tribunal of Inquiry will examine what happened to the many historical complaints regarding the Defence Forces "that went nowhere under the gardaí in the past decades".
Diane Byrne, a retired Army captain and member of Women of Honour has said they did not hear about the garda investigation ahead of the announcement.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, she said the question needs to be asked as to what has happened to any complaints made to gardaí up to now.
"This option was always open to members of the Defence Forces, although it was never really overly publicised or overly encouraged," she said.
"So, we really need to understand what's going on. This all seems very, very fast and very new. Of course we welcome it, for what it seems to be.
"But we have no understanding of what that is and it's very, very hard for us to tell anybody that's coming to us who has very little trust in everything that's been going on to date to go and go into this because we don't know anything about it.
"There's a lot of people out there who have suffered this for a very, very long time. None of this is new.
"We've been saying it for a long time. Lots of people have. Why now? What's different now?"
On the proposal to set up an independent oversight group to ensure the culture within the Defence Forces changes, she said that "from our perspective, it's more of the same".
"Again, no communication, no collaboration," Ms Byrne added.
"We knew nothing about this. This is all before a statutory inquiry is set up.
"The issue is very straightforward here. What happened in the past and there needs to be a widespread investigation.
"Figure out what happened, who knew what, what did they do? What did they not do and root them out?
"And only then, when the people, some who may still be in there, had any hand or dealing in this, they need to be removed so that we can then get on with designing and implementing solutions.
"Anything other than that, it's just not going to get to the answers here."
She said that it is very hard to have trust in this investigation.
"The issue going forward and what we need is something very different to what's ever been done before to get some sort of real restorative change in this country," Ms Byrne said.
"The one thing that we've never had with our troubled history is a chance to heal and move forward.
"And unless we can do this in an open and honest and transparent way, where anybody who had any involvement has to account for their actions, we're not moving forward from this."
Minister for Finance Michael McGrath welcomed Commissioner Harris' decision to launch an investigation into the abuse cases, saying "criminal cases should be investigated by gardaí".
Speaking to RTÉ News as he arrived for Cabinet this morning, Mr McGrath said "criminal cases should be investigated by gardaí" and described some of the details of the cases highlighted in last week's Defence Forces report as "appalling".
Mr McGrath separately confirmed that Tánaiste Micheál Martin will bring forward a memo to Cabinet seeking to establish an oversight group for Defence Forces reform in light of the abuse revelations.
