Mr. Tony McMahon:

I will start by dealing with the Senator's question on measuring progress. The actions in the implementation plans for our consent framework were grouped under various themes. Many of those in terms of training and policy are probably lead indicators that will result in the implementing of actions that we believe will lead to better outcomes. We monitor all that and report it to the Higher Education Authority. We have worked closely with the USI. Last year we had a very successful campaign called UnmuteConsent. It was a play on the words "you are on mute", a Covid type of language. That was a really successful social media campaign primarily. We would love to run that again this year. That was an effective way of collaborating with students to get key messages out to the whole student body on appropriate standards of behaviour and how they engage.

"Yes" is the answer to the question around looking at issues. We have a bit of work to do on the data on this in terms of the nature of the complaints vis-à-vis particular groups, not only with respect to all students, female students or male students but on the whole aspect of it.

That brings me to the question the Senator asked about sharing. The Speak Out tool, which is currently being piloted, has been in place for just over six months. A collective group of representatives from all the institutions have implemented Speak Out. That group collectively will look at the data and try to understand the patterns. We will examine first if the tool is doing what it was intended to do, which is to gather information and be a basis to allow people to report. That work is happening collaboratively and it is ongoing. The final point I would make on sharing is that it is not only a collaboration of student bodies but every university has also collaborated with NGOs in its area, for example, the local rape crisis network support centres. Much of our expertise was drawn from those NGOs and also the way we monitor and progress our implementation work. We work with those bodies as well to quality assure ourselves of the work we do.