Professor Louise Crowley:

To echo what my colleagues from Galway have said, I would make a couple of points on the schools' responses if this was imposed on them. We know that students are looking for this. I get direct emails from young men in particular, if they hear me on the radio talking about the programme, asking if we could bring this to their school. I think we underestimate the students' need and desire for it. We also must recognise that there are disclosures and incidents happening in school and the teachers are very vulnerable. They want to help but they can over-help and promise things that cannot happen. Equally, they can say very damaging things entirely unintentionally. My experience with schools is that they absolutely welcome it. I agree with the points made by Dr. MacNeela that what we have encountered are school champions, that is, teachers who actively pursue this. When you have those teachers who will look at rolling it out, it is really important that everybody else who could be potentially in receipt of the disclosure is supported. The minute we start delivering training, young people start saying things like "This happened to me and I never knew it", "I thought it was my fault", "I did not consent", and they come forward. We have to be very careful in terms of risk management when we respond.

There are just a couple of other very quick things. With regard to mental health, another key element of the training is supporting young people to be allies. We know from national and international research that young people are more likely to tell another young person. What do you do if you are 15 and your friend tells you they have been sexually assaulted? That person is also suffering and dealing with that. We need to empower them with the language and capacity to be pathways, to know where to go and provide them with information on how to support others to support themselves and to get to the necessary resources.

Regarding the one trusted adult, I could not agree more. That is why this training is important. I know it is beyond this committee's remit but we have been in sports clubs and youth groups and we have one trusted adult coming forward to deliver that.

On the community piece, we work with Nenagh as a town. We have been in the schools. A wonderful man called Marney O’Regan contacted me about it. It is in the whole of Nenagh town, if you were to drive down. It it is called Choose Respect and it is in all the shops, chemists, businesses and schools, and on the sporting field. Has the Senator seen them? They have these big banners.