Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for highlighting this issue. I want to acknowledge the huge leadership shown by NUI Galway, along with UCC, particularly with the by-stander and active consent programmes. I am conscious that every time I put a spotlight on this issue, it is not to in any way take away from the very good work being done by some people within the institutions, but more to try to support them.

I fully agree with the Senator's point on this issue. When I talk about this issue, I do not talk about it as though it is a specific problem that is confined to higher education - far from it. However, I am aware that there is a big issue in higher education, and education can lead in this. Education should be a place of safety, inclusion and tolerance, and it should also be a place of learning. Promoting positive consent in third level education is something that can help this transcend into society, which can only be a good thing.

In terms of how this committee can help, we have good guidelines in place but guidelines that are not implemented at a local or institutional level are no use to anybody. I have written to each university president, indeed my first correspondence with them was on this issue. I have asked them to produce an action plan on how they, in their own individual colleges, intend to tackle the issue of sexual violence, specific to their institutions. That is one thing that this committee could help play an oversight role in.

I also intend to expand the role of the Higher Education Authority, HEA, on monitoring this. People take things more seriously if they are monitored or measured against something, and that will help. I am very grateful to NUI Galway and the Union of Students in Ireland, USI, for doing that excellent survey but I do not think it should fall to students or a university to do this. This State should be doing this, so we intend to carry out and publish a survey and to monitor in this area.

I want to acknowledge Dr. Aoibheann Ní Shúilleabháin's leadership on this issue. She has met with me on a number of occasions and is very determined - as am I - that we drive changes through her own story and experience that she bravely and kindly shared with us.

We also need to change the composition of people that we put on governing authorities; I have tried to show good faith on this. The only skillset should not be being able to count numbers; it has to be broader that that. That is why I appointed Noeline Blackwell, CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, to sit on the governing authority of UCD. Our institutions are terribly male. I am conscious-----