The Defence Forces have investigated more than 140 allegations of sexual abuse, including 20 cases which involved a member of the military and a minor.
A report prepared by military authorities for Minister Simon Coveney disclosed that there have been 146 investigations by military police into alleged sex crimes over the past four decades.
However, some of these were later found to relate to “common assault” and consensual acts, according to the report, which was marked with a “restricted” status by the Defence Forces.
Of the 146 reports, 127 took place in Ireland and were dealt with by military police with 52 of those cases referred onwards to gardaí for investigation.
Another seven of them took place overseas where An Garda Síochána had no jurisdiction and they had to be dealt with under military law.
There were a further twelve cases that were found not to involve Defence Forces personnel but where there was a “military connection”, for example the location of the alleged crime.
Minister Coveney was told that there had been a significant fall in the number of cases over the past decades with 54 cases in the 1980s, 35 in the 1990s, 20 in the 2000s, and 17 in the 2010s.
Only a single case has been reported so far this decade with the report saying a change in “culture” within the Defence Forces and “increased external societal awareness” were a factor in the decline.
The report said: “[This] has altered the quantity, nature and extent of MP [military police] investigations into alleged offences with circumstances concerning a sexual nature.”
A breakdown of the 127 incidents, which were deemed to required investigation, disclosed that 19 of them related to rape allegations, with a further 62 cases of indecent or sexual assault.
There were six cases of sexual harassment investigated, ten cases of indecent exposure, and thirty cases reported of inappropriate behaviour.
The report said: “All trends have decreased significantly over time, apart from a slight increase in ‘inappropriate behaviour’ during [the] 2010s.”
Of the cases deemed sexual offences, twenty involved at least one minor, according to the report.
These involved four allegations of rape, nine of indecent or sexual assault, three cases of indecent exposure, and four reports of inappropriate behaviour.