Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the programme for Government states, we are living in a country where there is an epidemic when it comes to sexual and gender-based violence and we need to call it out. I do not believe our universities are any different to wider society or wider workplaces. As I always say when I speak to our university students or staff, sexual, domestic or gender-based violence is not unique to third level education but we are nearly unique in our ability to help transform culture in Ireland. First, a university campus operates like any town of village but it also has the next generation of employees, parents, employers, and leaders and therefore there is a particular responsibility on education - I do not think it should start in third level, by the way - around issues to do with consent. This is why I thank the Cathaoirleach for mentioning the active consent programme led by Dr. Pádraig Mac Neela and an incredible team of people in Galway; similarly, I acknowledge Professor Louise Crowley in University College Cork with the bystander programme which the Cathaoirleach also referenced. There are people who have been champions for years before others were talking about this at all. What we are now doing as a Department under the zero-tolerance strategy is trying to embed that good practice across our universities. It had been left to active consent and the USI to carry out surveys. It is great they do it but it is not right that it falls to them. Therefore, we now do a survey and report against it. We have national strategies. It is great that we have national strategies around tackling this violence in our universities but sometimes people can hide behind these slightly. We need to know what this means for University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin or the universities of Galway or Cork and, therefore, now we have each of our universities publish a plan on what they are going to do on their campuses to adopt a zero-tolerance approach and they have to report against those plans to the HEA, their funder, on a yearly basis, just as they have to report on many other things to do with finances. We have also put in place staffing related to this. We have co-ordinating posts that we have funded within our universities now where there is a person in that role. I have met them. They are not the sole people responsible for creating zero tolerance as that needs to be everybody in the university but they are the people within the university who has that co-ordinating role to make sure there is somebody working on it full time rather than it being a part of somebody's job. Can I say there is no sexual violence in Irish universities? Of course I cannot because there is sexual violence in all parts of society. However, can I say we are better prepared to move towards a zero-tolerance culture than we were a few years? I think we are but the country has a huge way to go regarding this. An important point that is always pointed out to me in that survey is that these are students who are saying they have experienced sexual violence; they are not saying they experienced it on the campus. This is often a student on a night out or in a workplace and that is important to say too. It is not a problem that is in any way, shape or form unique to third level but we can play a really important role in helping move the dial culturally. We have invested a lot of energy, money and resources in staffing up our universities but I do not ever want to hear that is the job of a vice president for this or somebody for that. This has to be a job for the chief executive of every university, the president, to make sure there is a zero-tolerance approach. They have to publish their plan, support the person in the co-ordinating role, account for it in respect of their HEA responsibilities. If we do that, over time we will see third level education play a really positive role in changing the culture in Ireland.