Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and our other guests to the committee meeting. I have a lot of notes so I hope the Minister will excuse me if I am not looking up at him. I will first touch on relationships and sexuality education, RSE, and how the challenges become more acute at third level. I may also touch on the precarious nature of employment contracts at third level.

In terms of RSE, the Minister, Deputy Foley, has said that the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, is in the process of developing a revised RSE syllabus. We know from responses from the NCCA that the development of that syllabus has not yet begun. Responses to the review, and responses from students in particular, are unanimous with regard to the importance of relationships and sexuality education. They reference the fact that they are conscious that, while friends and the Internet are sources of information, piecing information together from these sources has shortcomings. I am particularly thinking about LGBT kids piecing together information they find online or get from friends, which may be a necessity where RSE is not inclusive. This is probably a good moment to cite the programme for Government, which states the Government will "Develop inclusive and age-appropriate RSE and SPHE curricula across primary and post-primary levels, including an inclusive programme on LGBTI+ relationships and making appropriate legislative changes, if necessary." I will come back to the Minister's view as to whether such changes will be necessary.

The Minister touched on this himself so I do not need to say to him, although I will because we do not always get opportunities to discuss RSE so this is the time to do it, but if commitments on change are not delivered, the problems will become much more acute at third level. He has mentioned the Higher Education Authority study on sexual harassment. Some 8,000 students and 3,500 staff responded and a third of female respondents said they had experienced non-consensual sex. I think back to October 2020. I remember speaking in the Seanad about an article written by Una Mullally, who had spoken to a student union officer in a Dublin university who had received 350 disclosures of harassment and assault in one calendar year. Consent, positive and healthy relationships, safe Internet use and healthy attitudes towards sexual minorities are important. Does the Minister think it will be necessary to make appropriate legislative changes as mentioned in the programme for Government or can we deliver on this without such changes? As the Minister said, this was also the subject of a commitment in the report on the eighth amendment. Sex education has been in place since 1995. There is not much of an age gap between the Minister and I and we remember that this education was completely insufficient. The Minister's views on that would be most welcome. Perhaps I will allow him to respond at this point.