Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 17 November 2021

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media

A Safe and Respectful Working Environment in the Arts: Discussion

Mr. Andrew Jackson:

Excuse me for the lack of a picture, I am not in the perfect environment right now. Where FairPlé and MiseFosta may be seen as slightly different would be in terms of the age brackets we represent. These issues do not escape any age group and we have always worked in tandem and empathised with each other. We have acknowledged FairPlé's commitment to the more structural issues within the industry and the scene, and MiseFosta is more about behaviour within our age group, which also extends to the behaviour of those who work within the machinery of the scene.

In saying that, someone needs to take on an educational role in this or to set up some sort of portal or to provide training for those and the onus needs to be taken on. Not only should we learn about the tradition, the notes, the history and all the other beautiful things but we should be informed from a young age about what consent is or the dangers that are out there. If we pretend they do not exist when teaching, and I am not saying that we have explicitly pretended that they do not exist, but we have not prepared our young students for this. We have prepared them for the wonders, the hedonistic festivals, the competitions, for acquiring such a beautiful collection of music and stories and so on. They have been hit in the face with the reality upon attending their first festival.

Some of these predators are very self-aware of what they are doing. Whereas the rest of it can sometimes just be a lack of education or a lack of self-awareness, and just buying into a culture that is quite predatory. It is very hedonistic; there is much drink involved and there is peer pressure to go out and get the shift, and that causes run-ins where people end up doing something a bit shadier than that which is within their nature. It has been discussed during the campaign that there is a pyramid from soft harassment to really conscious, violent sexual crimes.

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