Mr. Philip Crosby:

I will try to address a number of the questions in general rather than going Deputy by Deputy or question by question.

Again, if it did not come across in my opening statement, I would not want to understate at all how seriously the Department and the Minister take the issue of consent. We attach significant importance to it. That said, and while issues of sexual consent and the culture behind it are very long-standing ones for us all in society, the reality is that it has come to the fore as an issue in higher education in relatively recent years. For this reason, and like others, I think the system is probably in a way catching up and trying to develop initiatives and so on to respond to this. While it is of considerable strategic importance to the Department and the Minister, I would not want to suggest the Department is claiming any particular expertise or monopoly of wisdom on the matter. For this reason, the Department is not carrying a flag for any gold standard or particular standardised approach.

In considering whether there is a gold standard, one thing that occurs is that if I look at the contrast of perspectives and approaches, it seems that SMART consent very much relates to the issue of consent as it affects people in situations at given times. The UCC bystander programme, on the other hand, has more to do with the culture that surrounds what happens when we are a third party and we see something happen. It aims to create a culture that is less tolerant and less supportive of misconduct and the attitudes - particularly the sexist attitudes - that go with it. In other words, both approaches have a role to play. The ESHTE project and It Stops Now seem to combine them. I would not like to see any of these being seen as a particular gold standard for which to aim. For this reason, and coming out of the workshop that was held in October, what the group that has been brought together plans to do next is to try to develop a toolkit or suite of appropriate interventions that can be operated or implemented in institutions and then to have some means of ensuring that the institutions are accountable for doing so and rolling this out. That is where I am coming from.