The Women of Honour group has called on the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence Micheál Martin to withdraw a comment he made in correspondence to the group's legal team.
The group, which has highlighted allegations of abuse in this Defence Forces spanning several decades, has said it is outraged by the remark which it described as flippant.
Last July the Government gave the green light to establishing a Tribunal of Inquiry to investigate whether there have been serious systemic failures in the complaints system in the Defence Forces.
The Women of Honor group wants the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act to be explicitly included in the Terms of Reference of the Tribunal.
However, in his written response to this request, the Tánasite said a reference to this Act would be very broad and could conceivably include "trips, slips and falls" that may have occurred in the workplace.
He added that the Tribunal chairperson would have discretion to include any "applicable duty of care for employees."
The Women of Honour have accused the Tánaiste of seeking to equate the unsafe nature of the Defence Forces' workplace of "rapes, sexual assaults and other outrages with low level slips, trips and falls".
The group wants the establishment of the Tribunal to be overseen by the Office of the Taoiseach.
"We ask at this late stage the matter is taken over by the Taoiseach's Office which is the correct forum for the Attorney General to interact with rather than through the Department of Defence," they said.
Government sources are this evening insisting that the terms of reference for the tribunal are broad and the judge has discretion to apply any law.
They insist that there have been numerous meetings with the Attorney General and his officials to draw up the terms of reference for the tribunal, the Women of Honour's requests were closely examined, and some were accepted.
A judge will be appointed to chair the tribunal once the terms of reference go to Cabinet.
A spokesperson for Mr Martin said that when developing the draft Terms of Reference, which were circulated to stakeholders last week, the Tánaiste consulted extensively with the Attorney General.
In correspondence with the Tánaiste, the legal representatives of the Women of Honour group had expressly sought inclusion of the Safety, Health and Welfare Health at Work Act 2005 in the Terms of Reference.
The Tánaiste expressed concern that an explicit reference would considerably widen the scope of the Terms of Reference and emphasised that the Tribunal will have regard to any and all relevant legislation provisions. This will be at the discretion of the judge who will be appointed as Chair of the Tribunal.
"It is unfair to suggest that the Tánaiste sought to equate serious incidents such as rapes and sexual assaults with slips, trips and falls" the spokesperson said.
