Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the representatives from the bystander intervention programme in UCC and the active consent programme in Galway. I thank them for the kind comments about the anti-bullying report, because that is one of the first reports this committee worked on. It impacted on all of us. Nearly one in three experience bullying in school environments. It had a significant impact on us as a committee. We worked on those recommendations.

I know active consent quite well. Dr. MacNeela and Dr. O'Higgins and I were at what I think was still NUI Galway, now the University of Galway, in 2021. It was wonderful to have the launch with the Minister, Deputy Harris. Only recently they were at the Department of Justice on St. Stephen's Green in Dublin to promote and speak about the work they are doing through the active consent programme. I enjoy hearing about how they are bringing together different disciplines. I come from an arts background and really see the value in bringing in different disciplines particularly to tackle what is really a social challenge. We talk about it at third level, in schools and in an education context but it is a whole-world context. We are training people and society how to support and protect themselves in the world rather than simply in our education environments.

Dr. MacNeela has talked about psychology, health promotion and psychotherapy being brought together and then the theatre, which is very important in Galway, of course, and in Cork as well. We have a brand new subject for leaving certificate: theatre, drama and film studies. How could that new subject benefit the roll-out of this type of programme which involves those types of workshop and bringing in the interdisciplinary part to it?

Dr. MacNeela spoke about benchmarking schools. Our anti-bullying report looked at the inspections that are published. There are resources on schooldays.ie. I want to be sure that parents can be informed when a child is in school - this is where they have a choice because in many places there is not as much choice - and that they can see how different schools put an emphasis on how they manage dealing with harassment, aggression or this type of behaviour. How do the witnesses see benchmarking working? How would it be publicly visible so people can see the measures that schools are putting in place? Obviously there has to be a lot of support for schools behind that. I am putting that to Dr. MacNeela because he spoke very specifically around guidance to schools and so on.

I am also on the subcommittee on mental health, as are some of my colleagues here. It is crucial that we see the active consent programme and the bystander programme, etc. This impacts on aggression and sexual violence among young people. Funding has been agreed for the active consent programme. It is between the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the Department of Justice, where Dr. MacNeela was based earlier this year when he was speaking about his programme, under the Minister, Deputy McEntee. Funding has been agreed for five years under the active consent programme. How will this change campus culture? It is incredible to see that 70,000 first year college students will have done that workshop. What sorts of colleges are included in that? Is it all of our colleges? It is over 2019 and 2022. I think Dr. MacNeela and Ms McGrath spoke as an advocate around the schools. We have over 1,800 teachers and over 1,000 parents online in the secondary school sector and over 4,000 secondary school students. How do we get the hearts and minds of parents behind this? Will Dr. MacNeela speak about that? It is very important that parents have the openness at home that young people can come to them. We always hear about the one trusted adult, especially in anti-bullying and mental health. The trusted adult can be at home, in school or in a sports club.

I apologise for posing all my questions together but I am keen for people to be able to come back in. How is the programme working with the Galway Rape Crisis Centre? People spoke a bit about the ETBs and FET. That is really crucial. Our universities are mainly based in our cities, although we have technological universities now which are great because they have campuses in smaller towns. Are we reaching more people through the centres the ETBs have in more rural areas and smaller towns?

I might come in again at the end but I would say to Professor Crowley that I think the bystander intervention is so important and that we all need to take an active part. It is not solely about the perpetrator and the person who experiences this but about everyone surrounding them as well. We all have a role to play. She might comment on that and the new course. I will let Dr. MacNeela start and others might have time to take the other questions.