Mr. Philip Crosby:

A number of the issues raised touch on the role and remit of the Department. I am conscious of two things in this regard. One is the issue of a standardised approach. While I appreciate that a standardised approach can avoid duplication of resources, the question of a standardised approach across higher education institutions should be linked with the question of mandatory versus voluntary courses that was discussed earlier. From the point of view of good practice - and this came out in Mr. De Rís's comments about tailoring something for the particular circumstances of a college - while there may be a suite of initiatives, tackling the attitudes that go with misconduct and that are so negative involves communities. The community on a campus is where one gets this right and gets best practice. From this point of view, the Department does not believe there is a one-size-fits-all scenario. When it comes to the question of course content or student content delivered by the HEIs, there is an issue of academic freedom, and the Department would not be in a space of directing or dictating whatever the institutions themselves might do. The idea here is really to make best practice models available to the institutions and then ensure that they deploy them as best they can.

If I may come to the question as to whether it is too late, there is an issue as to whether this work would begin when someone is at the age of 18 or 19 or earlier. I do not want to comment in any personal capacity in this regard except to say that the former Minister, Deputy Bruton, very recently called on the NCCA to initiate a review of the RSE programme in schools. This review covers a multiplicity of different relationship and sexuality education issues, but consent, what it means and its significance is the first item on the list as an issue to be dealt with. The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment is our expert in this field. As I said, as the NCCA goes into this review I am not sure with whom it will consult but I have no doubt but that the HEIs will have a role in that, if for no other reason than they have a role in teacher education and so on. However, this would really be a matter for the NCCA, which is due to report back to the Department and the Minister on this review in the first half of 2019.