Professor Louise Crowley:

As an educator, information and learning is the fundamental block with regard to developing and shaping cultural change. We know from our workshops with young people that the depth and extent of misinformation and misogyny online, to which they all have access, is unprecedented and is extensive. This is very much part of our role in our workshops which is, first, to give the participants the safe space to share those views, however toxic, and then to facilitate a balanced conversation. In allowing them to share these views, they can hear their peer responses. The value of allowing the peers to respond to each other in a safe and facilitated way means that they openly debate with one another.

With regard to some of the messages from those high-profile persons which the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach referred to, they certainly are influencing young people and men, in particular. We get incredible feedback from the teachers who are facilitating. One teacher told us that following the bystander training, male students in a mixed school indicated that they always thought that sexual harassment had to be physical for it to be wrong. Even their perceptions of what constituted unacceptable behaviour can be so misinformed. If they do not recognise unacceptable behaviour, they are obviously far more inclined to both commit it and not to challenge it.

Those toxic voices are loud and continuously accessible. In our current iteration, we are working on incorporating an element on porn and the impact of porn on understanding and behaviours. We have also found that female students - it is quite gendered - respond with revulsion but speak about the expectations in their personal relationships and the expectations that mirror the behaviours they witness online. This is very challenging because there is a growing misperception and false consensus among young people that what they see online reflects a normal relationship. There is powerful work to be done, therefore, to allow them to unlearn and relearn and that is a key part of what we do.

The school-based facilitated workshops are powerful to witness and participate in because students, when you have provided them with the information and the correct interpretations and understanding of positive, healthy relationships, will debate it among themselves, learn and unlearn among themselves and endorse the better behaviours, thereby allowing those who may have thoughts or beliefs that reflect misogyny or other unacceptable behaviours to move towards the better position, in a much safer and less dictatorial way. In terms of learning, we are not there to tell them exactly how to behave but rather to give them the information and allow them to get there themselves, endorsed and supported by their peers.