Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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You are all very welcome to this morning's meeting.

I ask anyone attending remotely to mute themselves when not contributing in order that we do not pick up any background noise or feedback. As usual, I remind all those in attendance to ensure their mobile phones are on silent mode or switched off.

Members attending remotely are reminded of the constitutional requirement that in order to participate in public meetings they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex. If they wish to contribute as per the speaking rota they should please indicate by raising their hand.

As witnesses are within the precincts of Leinster House, they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentations they make to the committee. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege, and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction. Members are also reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person or entity outside of the Houses or an official of the Houses either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

On the agenda for today's committee meeting is sexual violence and harassment policies and procedures in higher education institutions. I again advise members to avoid raising specific cases at today's meeting and to engage solely on the policies and procedures.

We welcome the following witnesses: from the Irish Federation of University Teachers, Mr. Frank Jones, general secretary; from the National Women's Council of Ireland, Ms Corrinne Hasson, executive director, and Ms Ivanna Youtchak, senior policy co-ordinator; from Rape Crisis Ireland, Dr. Clíona Saidléar, executive director; and, from the Teachers Union of Ireland, Ms Joanne Irwin, assistant general secretary, and Ms Anne Meagher, TUI executive committee member. They are all very welcome to today's meeting. An invitation was issued to Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éirinn, AMLÉ; however, it declined the invitation as it does not have the capacity at the moment.

I now call the witnesses to deliver their opening statements.

Mr. Frank Jones:

I thank the Chair, Deputies and Senators for the invitation to appear before the committee on behalf of the Irish Federation of University Teachers. IFUT represents academic and academic-related staff across Ireland's university sector. We welcome the committee's decision to examine the effectiveness of sexual violence and harassment policies and procedures within higher education institutions. Every student and member of staff has the right to study and work in an environment free from violence, harassment, intimidation and abuse.

In 2023, IFUT participated in the HEA advisory working group established under the HEA's framework for ending sexual violence and harassment in higher education. Importantly, the working group identified significant concerns regarding the long-term sustainability of the existing model of investigating complaints, whereby institutions procure external investigators and legal services on a case-by-case basis. The working group concluded:

Based on the foregoing analysis, the recommendation of the working group is that the best option for sourcing SVH Investigators for the HE sector is the establishment, for and by the sector, of a shared service entity (SSE) investigations unit which will recruit a team of investigators which can be deployed by HEIs to investigate formal complaints of SVH arising in a HEI.

There are a lot of acronyms there, but that is the quote.

The report of that working group fed into an implementation plan entitled Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment in Higher Education Institutions: Implementation Plan 2022-2024, which recommended 19 actions to be delivered in the lifetime of the plan. Action 11 states:

Conduct a feasibility study in relation to the formation of a panel of trained and skilled external investigators to investigate cases of sexual violence and harassment against staff and students.

Based on this recommendation, the HEA put out a "call for collaboration" to the HEIs to develop "sectoral guidelines or standards for investigations of breaches of institutional SVH policy". This call, with a funding envelope of €100,000, was to announce its outcomes in quarter 4 of 2025. IFUT has not seen any outcomes from this.

Individual institutions continue to spend significant sums engaging external investigators, barristers, solicitors and other consultants to investigate complaints. Our concerns include whether the current approach represents the most effective and efficient use of public resources.

We are concerned that the increasing outsourcing of this important HR function fragments expertise and inhibits institutional and sectoral learning, limiting opportunities to improve policies, procedures, consistency and practice across the higher education sector.

The increasingly legalistic nature of many of these investigative processes frequently compels the parties involved to secure representation to effectively navigate complex and often highly adversarial procedures. This representation often comes at considerable personal expense or, where individuals are trade union members, places a significant financial and resource burden on trade unions to provide representation and support throughout the process. There is, in my experience, no support provided by employers beyond directing participants towards their trade union or an employee assistance programme, typically delivered by an externally contracted provider.

While employee assistance programmes, EAPs, can provide valuable well-being support, they do not provide procedural assistance or advocacy in these lengthy, stressful and highly consequential processes.

Given the above, IFUT believes that there is a compelling case for the committee to commission and oversee a comprehensive review of the current arrangements governing the investigation of sexual violence and harassment complaints across the institutions. The review should seek to determine the total annual expenditure incurred by higher educational institutions, HEIs, on external investigations; the number and nature of investigations commissioned annually across the sector, including trends in the use of external investigative resources; the average cost of investigations and the factors contributing to variations in expenditure between institutions; the degree of reliance placed on external providers and whether this represents the most effective and sustainable model for the sector; the adequacy of the supports available to complainants, respondents, witnesses, trade unions and others involved in investigative processes, including access to representation, advocacy, well-being supports and procedural guidance; the mechanisms currently available for capturing institutional and sectoral learning; whether the current arrangements deliver appropriate levels of transparency, accountability, consistency and value for money; and the feasibility of establishing a shared national investigative resource, panel or specialist unit to support HEIs in conducting investigations, developing policy, sharing expertise and promoting consistency of practice across the sector

I thank the committee for the opportunity to make this submission and for its consideration of these important issues. We would welcome further engagement with the committee and I look forward to members' questions.

Ms Corrinne Hasson:

I welcome the committee's attention to this critical issue. The National Women's Council, NWC, is the leading representative organisation for women's rights and equality, and our mandate comes from our almost 200 member groups across the island of Ireland. The NWC has been instrumental in putting the issue of sexual violence and harassment on the political agenda and highlighting the crucial role of HEIs in implementing a zero-tolerance approach. This work was the result of a major European project and later through ongoing work of the national advisory committee, a unique collaboration of stakeholders led by the NWC that brought together universities, institutions and NGOs, as well as staff and students on the front line of sexual violence responses in higher education.

In 2023, the NWC, together with the Department, published a good practice guide that aimed to assist HEIs to implement and give true life to the Government's framework, Safe, Respectful, Supportive and Positive: Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment in Irish Higher Education Institutions. HEIs should be places of learning, growth and opportunity. However, for many students, particularly women and marginalised groups, experiences of sexual harassment, violence, stalking and image-based abuse continue to undermine their safety, well-being and educational outcomes.

Over the past few years, Ireland has made significant progress. The zero-tolerance strategy with specific objectives to end violence in HEIs and the national framework for ending sexual violence and harassment in HEIs are examples of important foundations for institutional action. The NWC is a proud member of the ending sexual violence and harassment Higher Education Authority, HEA, advisory group. It has also engaged and observed devastating information from our members, news outlets and survivors who did not find ways to report because systems had not been sufficiently victim-survivor centred. The recent University College Dublin, UCD, news with regard to mishandling of a medical student’s case involving rape and image-based sexual abuse is one of the most harrowing stories to date.

According to the Speak Out national report, the national anonymous reporting tool utilised across HEIs, only 20% of staff and 12% of students who disclosed to Speak Out made a formal complaint to their HEIs about the abuse and only 4% of students made a formal complaint to An Garda Síochána. Common reasons for not reporting the incident include the fear that nothing would be done or a lack of proof that the behaviour took place. We must do better. Survivors must trust that the system will respond fairly, consistently and in a trauma-informed manner.

HEIs have progressed at very different speeds of implementation and consistency. Significant differences exist between colleges in policies, procedures, staff training, supports and data collection. Some institutions have developed strong policies and specialist supports, while others remain under-resourced or slow to implement recommendations. Students' access to support and quality of response can still depend heavily on where they study. Disclosures, reporting mechanisms and data are crucial, and we need to continue to improve them in a consistent manner to tackle sexual violence and harassment in all of our HEIs.

HEIs are important partners in promoting zero tolerance to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, DSGBV. While they cannot solve all societal problems alone, they play a vital role in prevention, early intervention, support and accountability. We know from evidence that the NWC collected through our research that students, particularly international students, are more vulnerable to predators offering sex-for-rent arrangements. Institutional prevention programmes must evolve to prevent these forms of harm effectively.

Meaningful engagement with students and survivors is crucial. Those with lived experience are often best placed to identify gaps in systems and opportunities for improvement. Their voices should inform policy development, implementation and evaluation. We at the NWC are keen to see progress in HEIs to fully implement the recommendations of the Government's framework on this issue and by using the good practice guide that we have developed. Particularly, we are looking for progress in the following areas. The first is consistent implementation of policies, reporting procedures, prevention initiatives and survivor support measures across HEIs. The second is institutions having adequate staffing capacity to respond effectively and promptly with specialist staff to respond appropriately and to refer students to supports, adequate training, prevention and education programmes. The third is survivor-centred reporting and complaint processes, with clear, accessible and trauma-informed investigation processes. The fourth is institution-wide strategies to challenge misogyny, sexism and harassment that promote healthy relationships and equality. The fifth is inclusive and accessible responses for international students, disabled students, LGBTQI+ students, Traveller and Roma students, and students in precarious accommodation situations. The sixth is a consistent gold standard of data collection that fully captures survivors' journeys, including but not limited to formal reporting, disclosures, anonymous pathways, etc.

Deputies, Senators and colleagues, we must ensure that every student and staff member in HEIs has the confidence that if harm occurs, they will be believed, supported and treated with dignity and that institutions will take effective action to prevent future harm. We appreciate the attention of the committee and I look forward to members' questions.

Dr. Clíona Saidléar:

Rape Crisis Ireland, RCI, advocated for a whole-of-system approach to prevent and respond to sexual violence within our education system. In 2018, the then Minister of State, Mary Mitchell O'Connor, tasked us with setting out a framework for consent for HEIs, which later became known as ending sexual violence and harassment, ESVH. What has followed has been seven years of HEI and stakeholder collaboration alongside political support and resourcing. As it must, an undertaking of this scale becomes distilled into separate actions, tasks, lines of accountability, metrics and formal relationships. Above all of that activity, however, is the sum of the parts and the ambition. Cultural change is the goal and whole of system is the mechanism.

The objective of ESVH is to end sexual violence and harassment through systemic cultural change that profoundly curtails the possibility of sexual violence from happening in the first place, eradicates the support structures for perpetration and impunity, and delivers on the promise of freedom from violence. This is a radical promise. Few of us can attest to a life lived free of fear, but in the rape crisis movement we exist because our analysis says such a thing is possible. That ambition is no small or reducible thing. It needs continued leadership and commitment.

Ireland's approach, built from the start around shared infrastructure tied to public funding, is distinctive. ESVH was conceived as one moving, national system. The active engagement of all actors is notable and should be commended.

Progress has been made, and the committee's previous witnesses will have set much of that out. However, as predicted in 2018, the areas of strongest progress are where action was most straightforward, for example, first year training and awareness campaigns. The hardest challenges remain hard. Those are understanding prevalence, low disclosure rates and how institutions respond to formal reports. The vision of institutions collaborating with local community specialists, like rape crisis centres, to provide a seamless survivor-centred pathway has seen next to no concrete manifestation in seven years.

For RCI, the key risk now is that ESVH become a compliance matrix and that requirements be met on paper but large sections of institutions hand off responsibility with no genuine engagement. The HEA 2025 expert review group noted and evidenced this risk. The framework was never a checklist. It was about mobilising our places of learning to design out pervasive and endemic sexual violence. We have always believed that sexual violence is not a natural phenomenon. It is designed in. Therefore, it can be designed out.

ESVH is our laboratory. To protect that endeavour, we must guard against compliance as an endpoint and ensure whole-of-system structural engagement. No one aspect of ESVH can carry the full weight of cultural transformation, particularly when this initiative is competing with forces moving in the opposite direction. The most significant external challenge is the rise of online misogyny and what we are now calling the manosphere, an international network of influencers promoting male supremacy and anti-feminist ideologies, hitched onto multinational corporations' profit imperatives, expressed through recommender algorithms and the monopolistic colonisation of our attention with a disregard for harm.

The impact is measurable. Recent Irish research by Professor Debbie Ging found that fake teenage male accounts were served misogynistic content within 23 minutes, without ever seeking it out. Women's Aid's Evolving Manhood survey found that two in five Irish men hold traditionalist views on gender, rising to 67% among men aged 18 to 29. These are the young men sitting in our first-year consent workshops. We need fearless research that evolves with the changing and adaptive forms of the reassertion of dominance expressed through gender-based violence. The expert group recommended annual anonymised public reporting so we can track whether things are genuinely improving. No institution should fear full transparency, even of its failures. Once we understand that we are all subject to the same cultural context we have committed to change, our failures, fearlessly aired, become part of our shared contribution.

In Rape Crisis Ireland we have spent decades understanding that ending sexual violence requires whole-of-society change. The ESVH framework gives us the possibility of proving that in a bounded, resourced and measurable system. That possibility is still real and still to be realised. We must remain rigorous about what is not working as we are proud of what is, and we must remain committed to the strategic goal of ESVH.

Ms Joanne Irwin:

I thank the Chair, Deputies and Senators. The Teachers Union of Ireland represents academic, research and professional staff across the higher education sector, including members in the five technological universities, IADT and Dundalk Institute of Technology. Our members work across teaching, learning, research, student support, administration and institutional governance. They have direct involvement in seeking to ensure that every higher education workplace and learning environment is safe, respectful and properly supported. The prevention of sexual violence and harassment is a societal priority. Sexual violence and harassment are a corrosive scourge. They are a personal safety issue, a workplace issue, an education issue and an equality issue. Where it occurs in HEIs, it gravely affects staff and students, their teaching, learning and sense of personal security. It seriously damages institutional reputation. It describes behaviours that are abhorrent, unacceptable and often criminal. In society generally and in higher education institutions specifically, it is often particularly targeted at women, constituting an especially egregious type of misogyny.

For our members this issue must be addressed through meaningful consultation, clear policy, fair procedures, proper resourcing and adequate training. A policy that exists only on paper is not enough. Staff and students must know what protections are in place, how to access them and what happens when a disclosure or complaint is made. Most importantly, they must have confidence in these protections. Work in this area is ongoing but further action is needed to ensure that policies are implemented consistently, regularly reviewed and trusted by staff and students. The HEA implementation plan, Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment in Higher Education Institutions, provides an important national framework for this work. The HEA plan recognises that staff members’ needs and priorities must be included in institutional action plans. A staff member may experience harassment or violence. A staff member may receive a disclosure from a student, may be asked to provide support, may be a witness or may be the subject of an allegation. Each situation requires clarity, fair procedures, natural justice, confidentiality and appropriate supports.

Sexual violence and sexual harassment must be understood by all concerned as always unacceptable. Prevention must be central to policy and procedures. Institutions must build a culture where sexual violence, harassment, bullying, abuse of power and inappropriate conduct are not tolerated. This requires more than once-off or intermittent training; it requires regular, mandatory, focused and relevant education and training for all staff and students and for all those involved in the complaints process. It also requires proactive leadership from senior management and government bodies. Procedures must be fair, transparent and consistent. Complainants must have access to support and clear information. Respondents must have access to fair procedures and due process. Everyone involved must understand and apply timelines, rights, responsibilities and the standard of conduct expected. Institutions must avoid uncertainty, delay and informal handling of serious matters. Staff union representatives must be involved in policy development and review. TUI members are directly affected by these policies. Institutions must engage in structured, meaningful social dialogue with unions before policies are introduced or revised. Consultation cannot be a box-ticking exercise after decisions have already been made.

Work in this area has commenced and remains ongoing across the TU and institutes of technology sector. Implementation must be properly resourced. Many TUs and institutes of technology operate under significant workload pressures. Policies will fail if institutions expect already overstretched staff to take on complex disclosures or investigatory responsibilities without time, training and support. Dedicated and trained personnel are needed. Clear referral pathways are needed. Confidential support structures are needed. The particular context of TUs must be recognised. The transition from institutes of technology to TUs has involved major organisational change, multi-campus structures and new governance arrangements. Policies must work across all campuses and not create gaps between legacy institutions, departments or staff. Education and awareness are also essential. The measure of these policies is not whether an institution can say it has one. The measure is whether people feel safe to come forward, whether they are treated with respect, whether action is taken and whether the institution learns from what has happened. The HEA plan, Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment in Higher Education Institutions, also highlights the need to map existing reporting mechanisms, investigation procedures and support services.

In conclusion, for the TUI, the goal is a higher education sector where every campus is a safe place to work and learn. Institutions have a responsibility to ensure that sexual violence and harassment procedures are robust, accessible, fair, resourced and developed in genuine partnership with staff and students.

Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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I do not have many questions because the witnesses have brought forward a lot of information and recommendations. They say that for the policy to exist on paper is not enough. We are saying that is what the problem is. They are saying we have a great policy, but it is clearly not working. The implementation must be properly resourced. They have come back with that. They are under immense pressure, and they say that sometimes these cases can be complex. They also mentioned having a shared group with a team of investigators. That is something good to have because we will see less expenditure if it is shared. However, because it will be a team of investigators they will have the knowledge and resources. There will also be a place where anyone can go to say something happened to them. In some cases, people are afraid to report. We have seen that in the Speak Out figures, which are shocking. If you were to flip that on its head, it means that 80% of staff and 88% of students did not report. When you flip them, that is what you are hearing. That is really shocking. One sentence that stood out to me was that it is designed in so it can be designed out. This clearly shows that education needs to start at a young age to show that what is happening is wrong. The whole manosphere thing is scary for women. If you look across here today, you are just looking at the faces of women. However, I commend Deputy Connolly because he is normally here.

Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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He is in the Dáil asking a question.

Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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I have to commend him because he is normally sitting here. However, when you are sitting here talking about this subject that mainly affects women and all you are looking at is women, that also has to be called out. Someone said this has to be the whole of society. All of us should be in here talking about this if we are going to make changes. It cannot just be women sitting here trying to make changes for the whole of society. We have seen some staggering figures and heard of so many shocking cases we are not going to mention today. We were talking about policies working across all campuses. Every single campus has a policy and there are some good bits in it, but they are not the same across the board. That was a big issue when we were looking at them. It is almost like it is just a box-ticking exercise in some cases. I do not want to say that either, because it is down to a lack of resourcing and a lack of those with experience. That shared team investigation is definitely something we need to take away from here. Institutions are under-resourced and underfunded as it is.

Could that issue be causing some reporting not to happen because the expenditure would create serious issues? That is something that we need to delve into.

I found shocking Mr. Jones's statement that, in the experience of IFUT, there is no support provided by employers, only redirecting. That is simply not good enough. That could also be a reason some people do not want to report. We have the figures from Speak Out about a lack of evidence. That should not be a reason for women and men to feel they cannot report. All these things need to be called out. I thank the witnesses because their opening statements have all brought different types of solutions to this, which will work if we join them all up together. I thank the witnesses for their time.

Dr. Clíona Saidléar:

The Deputy did not set a question, but I will come back on some of the things she picked up on and her proposal as regards the review. Part of this is about transparency and understanding what is happening. We moved from, if you like, repurposing the group that sat with the National Women's Council's poster campaign into a collaborative space. It was truly collaborative. The institutions worked together very well. That formalised at a certain point into the HEA, once that implementation plan was put in place. We are now at a stage of maturity and maturation, where the next stage of collaboration is monitoring. From the outset, this was tied to public funding. That implies that there is capacity to enforce as well. We have not yet got to the place of enforcement. That would be the next step.

We are still at the place where we do not understand what is happening across the board. The monitoring is a challenge. When we have got this system in which there is contracting out on an ad hoc basis, how do we pull together shared learning and understand what is happening? More importantly, how does the survivor or anyone reporting into that system understand what is about to happen if there is no clarity around the process and we are looking at the emerging case studies around it - to use that criminal justice language - in a non-criminal justice space? It is important that the process in practice is a unified and shared one, in which there is mutual learning across the board and we can see what is happening there. It comes down to capacity. The question on resources was very interesting. Doing a survey of just how many resources are going into this on an ad hoc, case-by-case basis would be fascinating.

Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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We need to find the result of that feasibility study. That is very important as well.

Ms Joanne Irwin:

The policies are in place everywhere but their effectiveness is tested by the evidence. The problem we have is that there are individual policies across each of the HEIs because they are all autonomous. We definitely would welcome a sector-wide approach that every single technological university and institute of technology would be required to adopt. That would make our job easier. It would definitely be made easier if, no matter where the student or member of academic staff is, the same policies and procedures applied.

We need to treat all these policies as live documents. They are put into effect, but then they might be reviewed two years later. They should be reviewed if something happens or a case arises that identifies a gap because no policy is ever perfect. Everything changes arising from changes in society. Even now, the advent of AI will require changes to a lot of these policies because there is now more harassment and abuse in forms that we would not have known five years ago. We would definitely welcome a sector-wide approach, so that everybody knows they are singing off the same hymn sheet.

Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Before we move to the next speaker, I acknowledge that Senator Daly and Deputy Ó Súilleabháin are online. Senator Daly texted me to say he is online but cannot physically be present because of other things. That often occurs. We have to make sure we have male colleagues present but I have to defend them when they are online listening. Our next speaker is Deputy O'Connell.

Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I thank all the witnesses for coming in. I read their detailed statements yesterday, which highlighted many of the gaps. I was particularly horrified by the lack of data. It is very difficult to make any decisions and move forward unless we have the data because we could end up making things worse instead of better. That is one of the big takeaways I had from the statements.

To provide some context, 18 months ago, I had just finished correcting exam papers and was starting on a summer of supervision of many students as they finished their theses and final-year projects. As such, I look at this area from personal experience and the experience of colleagues. I was a member of the TUI.

I was nodding away to many of the statements the witnesses made. When I was looking through this, there were three areas that I wished to highlight, and many of the witnesses referred to them. First, staff are the people students see most. Students see members of staff every week. They are the people with whom they develop a relationship, not the administrative staff or whoever else. Staff are frequently that first point of contact for students in crisis. I have certainly been in that position, and I am not qualified to deal with it. I am a lecturer in company law and corporate governance, so I do not have qualifications in this area. Fortunately, in one specific case, I had just developed a friendship with the counsellor and chaplain and I was, I hope, able to be empathetic to the student and then give them a path of engagement to help them address their issues. It is very important that we support and make staff aware that they are going to be those signposts to students. That is on an individual basis.

I have also had to deal with a suicide in a class and various bereavements in the families of students I was supervising. Staff become very much part of the support network for those students but, again, we are not qualified or trained to do that. It can be quite a shock to find yourself dealing with that.

I was in TU Dublin. We were very much about pastoral care. We had more support than perhaps other HEIs had. That is where some of these issues have arisen, in that people just do not know what to do. In that context, it is important to highlight that one in five of our staff is on a temporary, short-term contract. I was one of them for many years. Staff are under pressure and do not even know if they are going to be in the institution the following month or year. They may not be able to avail of whatever supports and training are in place or they may not have time to avail of them. That is important from the perspective of having consistency across the HEIs, which a number of the witnesses referenced. There is a lot of churn within the higher education sector, with staff moving from one institution to another. If the policies and procedures are very similar from one institution to another and staff have learned them in one, then they can take that knowledge to the next one and not misdirect a student who comes to them in crisis. They will know exactly where the student needs to go.

The second issue I will highlight is the area of investigations, which Mr. Jones highlighted. I have some experience of this with colleagues. It can be terrifying to find yourself in an investigation. You might be the person being investigated or you may be part of the investigation because you were the person the student came to in the first place, which means you then become part of it. There needs to be a lot more support for staff who find themselves in those situations. I know of one case where it was the student's objective to have the member of staff lose their job. That was their stated objective in the first informal complaint they made to management. This was a staff member who was on a temporary, short-term contract at the start of their career. They were absolutely terrified about what was going to happen next. They certainly thought about just leaving the profession entirely. In this area, it important that we bear that in mind when developing our policies and recommendations.

The final point that many of the witnesses referenced was that staff can also be the victims. In HEIs, we are dealing with adults all the time. We are not dealing with children. The staff member is one person in a classroom of numerous students.

In my experience, there have been numerous structural issues where staff have effectively been put in harm's way because not every student responds to a poor grade or feedback with grace and maturity, and yet staff are expected to engage on this so there is a risk. I know of many staff who, post Covid, have moved to a point where they only ever have a one-to-one with a student online - during the pandemic we all became familiar with the technology - for their protection but also for the protection of students. That is a bit of a loss as well but people felt that was absolutely necessary for them. I emphasise all of this because the research is quite clear. If we support staff well-being then we actually support students' well-being but at the moment we have a significant disconnect around that.

I want to mention the international dimension as it was raised by several of the witnesses. I have taught international students who came from the Middle East, Jordan, Saudi, etc. Those students are much more likely to approach a female staffer. It is quite likely, with the one in five staff ratio of temporary staff, that the only woman that these students can approach is somebody who is employed on a temporary contract and may not have the understanding or supports. Again, there is a vulnerability there within system. Similarly, on the other side, there are also a lot of international staff who I find can be more vulnerable and perceived to be more vulnerable and we need to consider whether they should be provided with extra supports. I am interested to hear how the witnesses would advise us to make recommendations to support change in those areas.

Mr. Frank Jones:

I thank the Deputy for her overall understanding of the issue. The Deputy made reference to the short-term and temporary contracts as an issue. Of course it is precarious work. Precarious working conditions are an issue that affect pastoral care but so, too , is the staff to student ratio. The ratio in Ireland is completely out of kilter with the rest of the OECD, at a rate of 22.4:1 compared with the OECD average of 15:1. That puts a strain on the former colleagues of the Deputy. Staff find it a strain that they do not have the time or resources to provide the pastoral care that they need and want to provide. I am glad that the Deputy has acknowledged the issue and can see it from the other side. As regards the investigations unit, I have my points on that.

Dr. Clíona Saidléar:

The Deputy mentioned at the outset how she responded to a disclosure made to her and talked about the relationships that supported her in doing that, which is critical. It is one of the pieces that is often not hardwired in and we need to do a lot more around that. Obviously that is really about capacity and resourcing. If those people had not been there, there would not have been a relationship. As a side note, it was really clear to us from the outset in setting up the framework that this was already gendered and that we risked giving the labour and care role to women in institutions who were already burdened with it. That was something we would explicitly monitor to ensure that would not happen, and that the whole structure would actually step in. Have we succeeded? It is a work in progress.

On the relationship piece, one of the things, as envisaged from the start, is that relationship across the whole system and that would be with the local rape crisis centres. At the previous oral committee hearing members heard about training, for example, from rape crisis centres into HEIs. That is not funded, by and large. Seven years have elapsed and the rape crisis centres have not been knit into this process. We hoped and had the ambition that they would be from the start. A supportive framework and relationship from the ground up with expertise from those who can provide care, training and advice has not happened.

Members heard that mid-west, for example, has done a huge amount of training into the HEIs. They lost their funding for that in 2024. They have no funding for it. They used to have some ad hoc funding from the then Department of Justice. They no longer have that funding. We repeatedly drew down funding from various places, including the European Union, to prove and pilot collaborative work across the rape crisis sector around training and support structures that would knit in here. As members will know, when European funding is drawn down, it is to develop, pilot and prove something that then should be made mainstream by the State. That has not happened. The RCI has repeatedly said to the State that we have proven this is an essential role for a rape crisis centre that they would have a training role in a rape crisis centre. That is not a funding stream that is open to rape crisis centres. In terms of where that funding should come from, part of this is that the HEIs should possibly commission that too. It is not simply from where in government should funds come from. This is an essential role and task that the rape crisis centres and other local organisations around the HEI fulfil but there is no funding for it and it is not in any way structured in.

In terms of relationships, it is not just training. There is also the clear pathway for a survivor to the options they want, when they want them. That is built on relationships. It is built on the person who receives that disclosure having a relationship, understanding that, and that pathway being as smooth as possible for the survivor. That is built up through contact and that can only happen when the rape crisis centre has capacity.

Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their very informative presentations, just like last week. It is clear that not very much progress has been made and data is very sketchy.

In terms of the sources of some of the harassment, obviously big tech algorithms are largely responsible in some ways. Do the speakers agree that the representatives of big tech companies, many of which are based just 20 minutes from us here, should be called in front of committees and held accountable?

The data is quite sketchy. Is there any general profile of the perpetrators and those most responsible, or of the victims? What assistance has the Garda provided in this matter? Has that experience been positive?

Like so much in the public service, the cost of external consultants and investigators needs to be examined because it is rare to get value for money. In general, they cost twice or three times what they should, in many regards. I ask the witnesses to expand on the issue of costs for external investigators. I ask because it is a very inadequate way to arrange things. Who should be held most accountable for the source of the problem? Is there one important structural reform that we could help with, as a committee? If so, I ask the witnesses to the first step on that.

I have a background in teaching. In reference to the points made by Deputy O'Connell, I want to discuss another perspective which might not be as popular to consider. Are there many cases of vexatious complaints? I ask because I worked with a person against whom a vexatious complaint was made. The claim nearly destroyed him and he left the school as a result but later it was discovered that it was a vexatious complaint. Deputy O'Connell mentioned referred to a person who wanted to destroy a staff member. Have the witnesses come across such cases? I ask as I want to highlight another perspective. That is really all I have to ask, further to last week's meeting. I have nothing else to add.

Ms Corrinne Hasson:

On the tech piece, we have found that with advances in technology the abuse is becoming more widespread, which is really damaging, especially for young women looking to enter education. The case I spoke about in my opening statement was facilitated through email and WhatsApp. They are not really complicated systems so it is very hard to target down. What we are saying is that we need to have improved guidance and policies and better training for colleges regarding image-based abuse.

We have Coco's Law, which has been brilliant. It has provided important criminal protections against image-based abuse, harmful communications and online harassment. However, emerging forms of technology-facilitated sexual violence in higher education such as deep fake pornography, AI-generated sexual imagery and co-ordinated online misogynistic abuse require much more explicit policies and legislation. We are asking for tech companies to be called in to be scrutinised in terms of how they are facilitating this large-scale spread of sexual violence against young women, mostly across our HEIs. The Deputy is spot on in terms of the tech companies. They need to be held to account but we also need to realise that it is not the bigger pieces. Rather, it is e-mail and WhatsApp, so we really need to have them scrutinised on that as well.

Dr. Clíona Saidléar:

I certainly agree with that. It is all the way through but we need to get in front of this. We need to rein in the tech companies. There is regulation coming through from the EU and there is also domestic regulation. A number of committees and Departments are looking at Coimisiún na Meán and its powers, etc., but the recommender algorithms are a really significant problem. We have to recognise that the times have changed and that it is time for us to step up on that front.

In terms of the Deputy's other question on the profile, it bears saying again and I think it has been touched on today that, overwhelmingly, the most persistent profile of sexual violence is predominantly men against women and children. There is some data that would suggest that the late teenage years into early adulthood is a high-risk stage of life for a number of reasons, including the concentration of young people in HEIs at that point in life where we are all having a lot of interaction and, therefore, there is a lot of opportunity for predators. We often talk about this as a women's problem. We can also flip that and say that, in terms of the profile, this is a men's problem. It is a problem about and for men. It happens to impact women and children largely but it is a men's problem.

In terms of whether there are vexatious complaints, we do not have the data on that but what I would say is that the transparency around the process is about serving all sides. That is about all sides understanding what is happening and all sides having their rights recognised. This is what we have on the criminal justice side of the house and it has to be replicated. Part of why this is really difficult and has proved challenging to put in place is that there has to be both fairness and transparency in the process and appropriate sanctions and safety. One is trying to achieve all of those things together. That is what I would say about vexatious complaints.

We always need more data, so I agree with the Deputy on that one.

Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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Regarding the profile, are there any indications coming forward on the cultural backgrounds of those responsible?

Dr. Clíona Saidléar:

It is across the board. What we have always found is that there is no distinction. Wherever there has been a sense of this being down to them over there and not us, what we find are various places where predators can hide more effectively and have more resources than in other places. So, we are not seeing such indications. What we are seeing is a complex array of characteristics, including socio-economic status, education levels, etc., that all interact. I am afraid that perpetrators sit at every point in our society.

Ms Joanne Irwin:

A vexatious complaint can destroy someone no matter who they are but the problem is we do not have the data on that. That is not recorded. People talk, they hear of a complaint and they might not hear that the ultimate outcome was that it was a vexatious complaint, which can be very damaging, so if the committee can get data on the number of such complaints while obviously anonymising things and keeping people's confidentiality, it would help. I believe that those who are most vulnerable are those who are paid hourly and have insecure contracts and low hours. A lot of sexual violence and harassment, SVH, is unreported by them because of concern over losing contracts and hours and being labelled as "difficult". This poses challenges. Even the data that we have is not real data because I believe that there is a lot of under-reporting for those in precarious employment. It would be useful to get the data on vexatious complaints and the data on how much individual HEIs spend on external investigations. That would be a useful thing to know across the board. A centralised approach would make a lot more sense financially and procedurally.

Mr. Frank Jones:

We are looking at this in the context of higher education institutions. There are a lot of complaints that would probably be taken out of the system at an earlier stage if there was more data and a centralised unit. I believe that there might be a misunderstanding in some instances when complaints come in as to whether they are sexual violence and harassment complaints. If it was not immediately - sorry, I do not mean "immediately", as that is a little cruel to some of the HR departments - outsourced as a complaint to be investigated by a couple of outside professionals and if there was instead a centralised unit, that unit could get to the bottom of that. There are language issues and cultural issues that could be dealt with if the data was there and the experts were centralised and available. We would know the answer to all the questions or have a better idea of it, but there are external costs, value for money, cultural and training elements to this as well.

Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their contributions. A lot of legislation relating to domestic violence in some form or another is going through the Dáil and the Seanad. We have Jennie's law and the guardianship of infants law. A comment was made that it is not the man under your bed you need to be afraid but the man in your bed, so an awful lot of victim-survivors know the perpetrator who perpetrates violence against them in whatever manner.

All of the witnesses have spoken about ending sexual violence and harassment, ESVH, as a good framework and a foundation to build on but what I get from all of them is that it started off well but has not progressed, so the training is not there for the staff, the procedures are not clear and there is no uniform policy across the board. We saw that ourselves because we received the different policies from the colleges and there are huge discrepancies. While some are doing some good work around awareness and education, others do not seem to be doing so. The witnesses said that a common policy would be very important but can we force the implementation of that policy? What can be rolled out? It could be a resourcing issue. That is obviously having an impact. It is impacting the level of training, permanency of staff and the teacher-pupil ratio. What can be done to make sure that more is done on education awareness?

What was most scary was the statement that approximately 67% of young men were being influenced by the online misogynistic algorithms. I read that before; it was included in the report that was launched some months ago or last year. At least half of the age group from 18 to 29 - the first half - will still be in college, so this is a very important issue in secondary schools and HEIs. If we do not do something about it, they are going to go through life thinking it is okay to perpetrate violence and to treat women as second-class citizens. What can be done to create a uniform approach and more education awareness opportunities within our HEIs?

Dr. Clíona Saidléar:

Everyone has touched on monitoring and transparency. The HEIs can do a lot more in those regards. There is goodwill and work is happening. We would characterise it as still being a work in progress. The collaboration and commitment of HEIs have to be noted and are a critical part of this, so it is not through a lack of willingness. There have been a number of attempts to try to figure out the formal reporting process, for example. It is just very complex and we still have not figured it out collectively.

I do not want to take away from it in any way, and I acknowledge that where we are today has been built on that collaboration.

On the monitoring piece, what often what happens is that we need to all move together. From the outset, this was a national initiative as opposed to an institution-by-institution initiative. When we look at monitoring, I will use the word "enforcement", which I hesitated on because collaboration is so important. If you move to enforcement, you come up against the higher education Act, the question of independence and the HEA's power in this area. This was attached to public funding from the outset. If you are in receipt of public funding, it is an obligation. That is fundamental. We are still at the development stage. Enforcement is still ahead of us; it is not here yet. We have to have our baselines if we are going to enforce now, because we do not know what we are failing on or where we are starting.

We are still at the stage of having to focus on monitoring. We have to figure out the unified way in which we are going to handle formal reporting. That has to be really transparent because, just as the Senator said earlier, there are going to be a number of different processes and filters that cases will go through in terms of formal handling. People will have a range of needs on foot of that. Is it someone you know or someone who is sitting right next to you in the lecture hall? That requires an intervention that might be different if it is a lecturer sitting in front of you. There are a range of considerations for the institution that are quite complex in the context of how to respond. We still need time on that but, certainly, when it comes to resources, I would go back to one of our asks, which is that the resources for the community-based sector would engage, build those relationships and build in the seamless support for survivors, staff, the students' union and those members of staff who are receiving the disclosures and are in the business of prevention, including primary prevention.

Ms Corrinne Hasson:

I will come in on prevention. That was a nice segue from Dr. Saidléar. There are a lot of initiatives and campaigns out there. As the Senator mentioned, there are young boys now who will get in to these kinds of settings. We need to get them earlier. I am thinking of the likes of the manosphere, to which reference was made earlier. We need good, targeted, evidence-based initiatives directed at our younger children in schools - via social, personal and health education, SPHE, and the curriculum - in order to support children and young people with high-quality and age-appropriate education. We need to create positive spaces for young boys and men in order to develop healthy attitudes towards women.

We were talking about something earlier today. The root cause is the manosphere and that sense that our young boys are looking at the Andrew Tates of this world and believing what is said in the manosphere. There is the concept of the trad wife whereby it is believed that young women should be submitting to their husbands. According to the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre evaluation report in 2025, young men aged 18 to 24 are the least confident in this regard, with 16% unsure of what consent actually means. When you hear figures like that, they are so incredibly stark. Nearly one in four said they would probably keep going even if they suspected their partner was not enjoying a sexual encounter. That was up 3% in 2024. Those figures are stark, and they are rising. As a result, the prevention piece we are talking about and getting to our younger boys and girls to talk about this and gender equality earlier are so vital to tackling this issue.

Ms Youtchak wanted to mention the fourth national strategy. We have some key opportunities now to make sure that these conversations are being brought into our policies.

Ms Ivanna Youtchak:

We had a consultation with our National Women's Council of Ireland members last week. There were nearly 100 people present. It can be overwhelming to hear about this all at the same time and to try to tackle it, but the framework of the national strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence is a good one. It is now coming to an end and the fourth one is about to start. Cuan talked about this last week, and I think the right approach is to look at the broader picture of what is going on and where the HEIs fit in. Otherwise, it could be very overwhelming to think that we could try to sort the whole society from here. Nevertheless, the HEIs have both a specific role to play and a specific opportunity. We now have the opportunity to look at where, in broader terms, the HEIs can fit in the context of both prevention and reporting. There is really good practice that Dr. Saidléar and Ms Hasson mentioned already, and also from teachers and professionals. We need to base it on evidence and what is working. Even if they are all pieces of a puzzle, I think there are good practices out there that we need to follow.

Ms Joanne Irwin:

I wanted to make a point regarding uniformity. There is not the uniformity there. All of the technological universities, TUs, and institutes of technology have policies in this area. They all have different names for them, however, which is confusing if the a student or staff member is going to look up a policy. I refer to uniformity even in titles. That may sound like a minor point, but it is actually very important.

The worst thing for an academic - I have taught at second level and in further and higher education - is if a student comes to you and says something and you do not know how to react. No teacher or academic wants to be in that position. You particularly do not want to further traumatise them because of something you say straight away that might prevent them from going further. Training is absolutely key, and I think the committee should certainly consider a recommendation with regard to increasing funding to counselling support services. In the TU sector, there is one counsellor for every 5,000 to 6,000 students, whereas the international norm is one counsellor to 1,000 to 2,000 students. We are totally out of kilter with other jurisdictions. If somebody comes to you and you tell them, "This is the person you need to speak to", that person might not be available because they are tied up with other things. A lot of this goes back to resourcing and funding. However, uniformity would be so easy for everyone. Whether you are in Atlantic Technological University in Letterkenny or Technological University of the Shannon in Limerick, it should be the same principles in the policy or the same reporting structure. That is the only way to embed it.

In relation to the training at second level - we have members at second level - that is being brought in with the SPHE programme that will be mandatory in order to try to get it early. It all comes from whatever happens in people's homes, but I think that the second level curriculum change will assist that. However, it is going to take time to work its way through the system.

John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I apologise that I had to leave for a brief period. I have read the opening statements, however. I was concerned leaving the room, to be honest, by the tenor of the opening statements and the evidence the witnesses were outlining. I refer particularly to Mr. Jones, who stated:

Individual institutions continue to spend significant sums engaging external investigators, barristers, solicitors and other consultants to investigate complaints. Our concerns include whether the current approach represents the most effective and efficient use of public resources.

That would not be my overriding concern, as would be the fact that it seems the system is not victim-centred but is designed to try to protect the institutions in ensuring that they cover their backs and get to a point where they can, perhaps, engage in a fudge of some kind. Does Mr. Jones share my concerns?

Mr. Frank Jones:

Yes. I would stress my use of the words, "Our concerns include". We have many concerns, and they do include that. I make the point that financial waste - and value for money has come up here before - might attract the attention of some others to address this, that is, some others who are not in this room. I doubt very much that there is anyone in this room who approaches this purely from a financial perspective, but there are others who we could influence to introduce a better system. They might be enticed by the value-for-money element, but there is a lot more to it. I refer to outsourcing an issue that HR, counsellors or academics, as part of their pastoral responsibilities, can deal with. Outsourcing it to the legal profession and bringing those in that profession into the picture scares the bejaysus out of students, lecturers and academics alike. It is not right on many occasions. I have had to sit with both sides - with those who have made the complaints and those against whom complaints have been made - in these processes, and they are very formal and legalistic. It is a frightening place to be.

My primary concern has nothing to do with the cost. If we carried out a study, it would probably emerge that there are better ways to spend public money on much more effective procedures that will lead to the development of policy and, ultimately, a reduction in the incidence of sexual violence and harassment. Those are the main concerns. I put the word "include" in there.

John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that, I grant Mr. Jones that, and I appreciate that. The other point that arises from a system such as what Mr. Jones suggests, where he feels it would be better to try to gather data so we are fully aware of what is happening, is that his colleagues on the National Women's Council put it very well today when they said they had "observed devastating information from our members, news outlets, and survivors who did not find ways to report as systems have not been sufficiently victim-survivor centred". I do not think we need any more evidence or data that women are at risk. The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre came to our parliamentary party meeting. One in three women is suffering domestic violence. Every single day you pick up a newspaper, there is a new story about a woman who has suffered violence, be that physical or sexual. We are even seeing an increase in the number of women murdered in this country, which is shocking. We need to develop a victim-centred approach throughout all institutions. I am somewhat regretful that the witnesses are here the week after the HEA because it told us it has 16 dedicated sexual violence and harassment prevention and response managers across higher education institutions. They are obviously having very little impact, however, given the information coming to the fore through the organisations that represent victims in this area. Do the witnesses have any experience of the 16?

Dr. Clíona Saidléar:

The role as I understand it does not do all the work. The whole point of that role is more co-ordination. They are the point of knowledge within the institution. The risk, as the Deputy identified, is that they become the people who have to do everything as well, which is not the point of those roles. It is the risk of institutional protectionism versus being victim centred, which is key. I made the point earlier about the ad hoc outsourcing of the formal process. If we cannot see it, it becomes hidden because it is ad hoc and individualised. We do not have shared knowledge. We cannot look at it like we would case law within the criminal justice system and the norms and practice emerging. That is our fear as well, that we just cannot set up a pattern of behaviour.

Ms Corrinne Hasson:

On the victim-centred piece, the National Women's Council convenes an observatory with about 40 organisations - services, advocacy organisations and survivors organisations. Recently, Cuan asked us to publish a report about survivor engagement with structures. We have developed frameworks on how we can bring survivors' voices into policy development, implementation and evaluation. We are finding, looking across best practice, that if you bring survivors' voices into the development, it makes the services and everything so much better for more survivors coming forward. It makes reporting and accessing services and supports easier and it lets us know what training we need to provide to different professions While the report of the observatory was not specifically for HEIs, there is definitely a lot we can take from that report to bring it into the HEI structure.

Ms Anne Meagher:

I welcome the comments. Sixteen dedicated staff across the sector is probably not enough but it certainly makes it more visible, so it is welcome. A few years ago we would not have known where to go if somebody came forward with a complaint, but at least it is a focus now. They have a lot of visibility on the website. They have phone lines and online facilities for reporting, which helps. It is not enough, obviously, but it certainly helps to make it more acceptable now to make a complaint.

John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I might be misinterpreting what the service is about. Perhaps I was applying a greater role to them than they actually have within the institutions. I noted the commentary from both witnesses today suggests the institutions do not have uniformity in this area.

Ms Anne Meagher:

That is definitely true.

John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Do the 16 practitioners operate in a uniform manner across the institutions?

Ms Anne Meagher:

I could not say for certain but I think it would be fair to say probably not.

Dr. Clíona Saidléar:

They have a network and meet regularly and talk to each other regularly.

Ms Anne Meagher:

It is fair to say they have brought greater visibility, which is definitely helpful.

Mr. Frank Jones:

They do not talk to us.

John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Jones said they do not talk to IFUT but they are open to its members.

Mr. Frank Jones:

They do not talk to the trade union representing the academics in their institutions.

John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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If one of IFUT's members has an issue of concern, they are open to receiving that.

Mr. Frank Jones:

I do not know that.

John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Does Mr. Jones have a sense of why they do not talk to the union representing the staff?

Mr. Frank Jones:

Perhaps we are not on their radar. I do not know.

John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I would like to clarify. Do they see their role as purely for students?

Mr. Frank Jones:

I do not know anything about this group.

Ms Joanne Irwin:

Our experience is they do speak to staff in the TU sector and are available to them. Ms Meagher is in TUS in Limerick so she has more experience in this.

Ms Anne Meagher:

We were consulted on the introduction of policies for reporting and issues like that. I am not saying it is enough but it is a start and a step in the right direction.

Dr. Clíona Saidléar:

My understanding is their role attaches to the framework as a whole. Everything within that is something they have a line of sight on.

Laura Harmon (Labour)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach and all of the witnesses. It is important we are having this discussion at the Oireachtas committee. We need clear recommendations following these discussions. What is clear across the board is there is a lack of cohesion in policy. We need more but all the research points to there being a problem. It is a prevalent issue. We can also see there is under-reporting. The National Women's Council in the opening statement referenced that only 4% make a formal complaint to An Garda Síochána. From my experience when I worked as a student union representative in 2013, we published a piece of research called the Say Something survey. That highlighted even back then how prevalent under-reporting was. I do not believe it has been tackled sufficiently since then. Regardless of algorithms, I think we can all agree the online world exacerbates what is happening in the real world. It is making the situation worse in many respects but this has always existed. It is about tackling it.

An issue that is very clear is where these incidents happen. While many happen on campus or within institutions themselves, incidents might often occur outside of the campus in public spaces, bars or accommodation. We also saw the issue of sex for rent, for example, which is appalling. Legislation on that to make a statutory provision against it is passing through these Houses at the moment. We know 5% of international students have seen ads or have been proposed directly on this issue. That is a huge area. It could be in student accommodation or outside of it, but where it happens is part of this as well.

I know some colleges have mandatory classes or training for students on issues relating to consent. Do the witnesses believe that should be implemented across the board? Some colleges form good relationships with An Garda Síochána and have it on campus regularly, putting a face to the Garda and showing students they are there. Is more training needed for An Garda Síochána on this, especially with international students who might not know much about our Garda? Many do not even know our gardaí are not armed, for example, as they are in some countries. There are different cultural aspects.

Another issue that has been reported a lot recently, which Mary Crilly of Cork Sexual Violence Centre has been very vocal on, is spiking. Is that of concern regarding students, not just putting drugs in drinks but also injections? I think that is becoming a more prevalent issue. That is what I am hearing. Will the witnesses comment on those issues?

It is important staff of the institutions are represented here as well. This is not just about students. I will come back to some comments made earlier. This cannot be up to women to solve; we know that. It is a whole-of-society approach. It is welcome that men in the Oireachtas are also leading on this.

We need leadership from men and women at all levels when it comes to this. Certainly within the institutions as well, all the presidents of the different colleges need to show leadership from the top on this issue. I will put that to the National Women's Council first.

Ms Corrinne Hasson:

I would love to come in on the spiking issue. We had our AGM a couple of weeks ago and we had 21 motions, most of which were passed. One of them was around spiking, and I think it is the first time we have ever had a motion specifically around spiking. It did come from Mary Crilly herself, down in Cork. Mary and a team of people have put together an organisation called Safe Gigs Ireland. They bring volunteers to different gigs and festivals, and it is all around making women feel safe, keeping an eye out and making sure nobody is getting into any difficulty. It is quite a sad state of affairs we are in, that we need something like that - which is mostly volunteer-led as there is very little funding towards it - just to make women feel safe on a night out or at a gig or concert, something we all just take for granted. The spiking is a huge concern. As Mary herself said to me a couple of weeks ago, it appears at the minute to be the perfect crime because it is so hard to track or trace. There are people who are doing it almost just for the craic, it is not necessarily even to go forward with anything after that in terms of sexual violence, although in a lot of cases it is. It is so prevalent and, coming back to the data, we have no data on it. People are not reporting it, even when they go to the hospitals by the time they get blood results it is just not worth people's while going and getting it done at the moment. We need to look at that because there are tests out there people can get that can provide quicker results.

On the Garda presence on campuses, it was mentioned earlier that they are not armed. That is something that many international students, in particular, would not know and there would probably be a fear for gardaí to be on campuses. We need the training and awareness and we need them to know that it is better. Having more gardaí out and about would obviously be a huge benefit. Training has come up so much today, for students, teachers, everybody and anybody. We need to look at safeguarding in terms of children's safeguarding, where is a lot of mandatory training. When it comes to DSGBV, particularly in our higher education institutions, we need to look at mandatory training for educators. There is a lot in there but I would absolutely say there should be more gardaí on campuses and in surrounding areas. There should be training for students and staff, 100%, we need more of it and I do think it can be made mandatory. On spiking, we have so much to do in that space. It seems to be hugely prevalent and we are only touching the surface of what is going on there.

Ms Ivanna Youtchak:

Just to add to what Ms Hasson said, there have been a couple of questions about migrants and international students. We developed a model with funding from the Department of justice to specifically target different communities because not all backgrounds are the same. Basically, the way we addressed it was not only about the role of the Garda but also what the support is. Often, migrant women or international students do not even know what support means, never mind that it is available. We developed leaflets and workshops. We believe that to realistically target international students or migrants in general, the model has to be very much more targeted towards what laws directly affect migrants as well as issues like sex for rent, which they probably do not know is illegal, or hopefully will be illegal in Ireland, and so on. There are a lot of things that need to be specifically targeted for migrants.

Ms Joanne Irwin:

On the issue of training for the students, we think it should be embedded in the college experience. Some of the TUs and IOTs do that. They do not just do consent, they do bystander intervention, image-based abuse, stalking and the reporting mechanisms. Some do it as mandatory on their induction for whatever course they are doing. It should be mandatory across the board. Others would have resources available but it is not mandatory. That is something that needs to be looked at. Can it be embedded into the curriculum? It probably should be in some aspect or other. It certainly should be embedded in the college experience. The best way to do that is at the very start when they are starting first year, when they are coming in and doing induction, they are all there and they are eager. That is the time. Bystander intervention is as big a problem as the DSGBV.

Dr. Clíona Saidléar:

I am pondering how we might think about the training that is out there in our society. The training is happening, the training is our culture. I am referring to the recommender algorithms. There are people who are counting the amount of our attention that is caught up in that. We are not choosing it, we are not consenting. It is being forced on us and our children and it becomes addictive and so on. We are coming with our training, asking if it is going to be a mandatory course in first year or if we are going to embed. If we look at the other side, if we want to think of it in that way, if this is the level of training they are exerting on the population in terms of engineering our culture into misogyny, then it is reasonable to say that yes, we should embed in our culture the piece where we draw some lines in the sand and give people critical capacity to engage with the culture they have been given in this space. There is a part of me that is not sure anything is too much. I am not sure we will ever get to an equal and opposite position. Certainly we would not be opposed to mandatory elements, but embedding it across the culture and across the curriculum is a really key piece so that it just becomes normalised, in the same way that a recommender algorithm normalises misogyny into our lives, equal and opposite. Overall that is what I am thinking.

The survey which was referred to was really our first baseline which kicked us all off in this direction. It gave us the evidence on which to build into this. One of the things we are always tracking is that we know sexual violence is opportunistic. We know sexual violence will try to find places to hide. The drug-spiking, the culture, the tradwife, all these tools are there to conceal and to give hiding places to perpetration. I am putting them all together in a way, and saying yes, we do need to think in less linear ways about our own training because the world out there is much more creative than that. The one thing I have said over and over, that we have learned over and over again, is that the tool that works today will not work tomorrow. We have to be continually learning and adapting because the culture is adapting and learning every time we change the rules. Spiking is a perfect example. Spiking ten or 15 years ago was something exceptional that stood out, that you could really point to but recreational drug use is now at a point where it is becoming much more hazy and there is that much more cover for perpetration. We are seeing some of that and it is definitely more difficult to count.

Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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So much has been covered today. It has really been a challenging meeting. All the contributions have been incredibly valuable. I am really appreciative of the witnesses' time and the effort they put in today. When I mean challenging, it is making us think in a different way. It is challenging because it is deeply and profoundly upsetting that our young people are living in a world through algorithms and being moved along into a culture that we would have fought against in my university days and tried to change. We seem to be taking half a step forward and a lot more back in many ways, even though it is very clear that there is significant progress. There is a juxtaposition there that is not making sense but it is not right. There are so many gaps between policy and practice. We have frameworks, strategies, goodwill, guidance, all those things, and we are not getting the results that we all want. That has been the reason this committee wanted to have these discussions. We are determined that we put our mark on supporting students, staff, and the entire higher education sector to foster a more positive culture. If we succeed with our younger people, they will fare far better as they move through the rest of their lives in work or whatever.

I know our contributions today will be carefully considered and all the evidence the witnesses put forward. Our goal is to support the framework and make sure it delivers for real cultural change, consistent standards across every institution and a system that is survivor-centred.

Before I sum up, does Deputy Cummins wish to comment?

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I have short questions. I am normally here earlier. I am not on this committee but I like coming because I am spokesperson-----

Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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And a good colleague.

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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A swot, maybe, people might say. The questions are about harassment. If a third level institution has a class group where there are young people being harassed by another student, how is that handled by the college? It could be in a WhatsApp group or in the class itself.

Second, if there is a case of one student to another related to sexual harassment or abuse, how does the institution separate them and make sure they are protected? How is it managed when there is an active case? It might be a criminal case or it might not be. It might be a disclosure.

How are staff trained if a student goes to them as a lecturer or tutor to say something has happened? Do they have training? When I worked with children and young people, we had Children First. We had training about child safeguarding. How does that happen for people at third level who are teaching or support staff?

I thank the Chair for letting me in and apologise for the delay.

Ms Joanne Irwin:

Training is mandatory for academic staff who have a role in the policy. If they have any role in that, they get mandatory training. Training is offered to other academic staff but it is on a voluntary basis if they want to take it up. As I said earlier, when a student comes to you and declares something, you want to know what the right way to answer it is and the right way to treat it; where do you direct them.

I will ask my colleague, Ms Meagher, to come in on the student question.

Ms Anne Meagher:

I welcome the question. I am a lecturer. It is a worst nightmare to have students come to you with issues like this because it is very difficult. We have policies in place for student complaints, whether it is students against staff or students against other students, so we invoke those policies. Where the complaints are of a sexual violence and harassment nature like this, we would go to the dedicated sexual violence and harassment prevention officer. We have an officer in place now. They have a good online presence in TUS. You can go online and find out how to make a complaint. We distinguish between informal discussion where someone makes a disclosure or taking it to the level of a formal complaint. That is what we would do – look for the relevant policy, invoke that policy and direct them towards adequate resources and support.

It is worth saying many of us take on some sort of pastoral role, but fundamentally we are not qualified to deal with issues like this and we like to advise staff that, in general, you need to refer on to somebody who is actually qualified. Sometimes it is just to a counsellor. It depends on that the student needs. We do have some resources now to provide the student with an avenue for how they can go forward. Sometimes they just want a listening ear, but even at that we would direct them towards the counselling services or else going down the route of making a complaint if they want to do that. Does that answer the Deputy’s question?

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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It does, yes. Thank you.

Dr. Clíona Saidléar:

Some of the Deputy’s questions are probably not for us but for the institutions. What we have heard today is that it can be different in every institution.

I welcome the training piece. The rape crisis centres get asked to deliver disclosure training all the time. As I said earlier, by and large rape crisis centres do not have a dedicated training person. There is no grant stream to fund rape crisis centres for what is an essential role for a rape crisis centre. The other part is that it is not just training in, because that training also builds relationships with the local services, and that is really critical in terms of referral, supporting those who are receiving the disclosures and a survivor-centred response. One of my key messages today is rape crisis centres should have the opportunity to have a funding stream to be able to have a training role in place.

Laura Harmon (Labour)
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On rape crisis centres, are there particular times of the year – take the college year, for example – where there is an influx in calls? Would it be concentrated around freshers week, rag week or Christmas or is it something that is not notable?

Dr. Clíona Saidléar:

There are some spikes. I would not necessarily say it follows the semester but the other challenge is that while we do record in our data system if someone is a student, for example, whether someone has been referred from an institution to a rape crisis centre is not necessarily tracked. Unless they tell us that, we will not record it and many survivors self-refer, but they may have already been in touch with their institution and may have already been given information but did not mention that to us when they self-referred themselves. Our tracking system is not perfect in understanding that pathway.

Laura Harmon (Labour)
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I have one follow-up question on spiking. Do we need particular stand-alone legislation on that? Is there a need for more national awareness campaigns on it, not only for students but also the general population?

Ms Corrinne Hasson:

I think it is both. Legislation would definitely be a huge bonus, and we would really welcome it and would love to work with the committee on that, but campaigns are very necessary. With some of what we have spoken about today, there are great policies and procedures, but if people do not know about them, or how to enact them or how to go about accessing certain supports, then it is not worth it. It definitely needs a two-pronged approach.

Laura Harmon (Labour)
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The overall policy for the institutions is lacking at the moment. From IFUT’s statement, it is very worrying to hear a commitment was given that there would be sectoral guidelines and standards for investigations or breaches of institutional sexual violence, that harassment policies would be developed and that there was funding of €100,000 granted for that. The outcomes were supposed to be announced by the end of 2025 but there have been no outcomes yet. That is something that needs to be followed up on and I am sure we will do that. It is a missed target. From the perspective of a staff member in a college or of a student, the key thing is they need clarity so that if somebody does disclose or report something, that staff member or student knows where to take it from there, that if somebody says something to them, they know where to go with that information and what the chain of protocol or command is that is needed to do that. If there is that clarity, it will make the process more simplified for everybody. It is still very difficult for people to report in the first place, but if they do not have that clear chain, that can create a lot of misinformation as well as anxiety for people working on campuses if they do not know how to deal with an issue if someone comes to them. Does IFUT want to comment on that?

Mr. Frank Jones:

I have been before this committee on several occasions defending academic freedom and institutional autonomy - both of those things have a very big place within the higher education institutions - but do not believe creating local policies on sexual violence and harassment are protected by institutional autonomy. This is too big and should be centralised.

Deputy Cummins asked how complaints are raised and dealt with. That should be in the policy. The resources should be there as well. The policy should not just be to collect data and say this problem is bad. We knew that eight years ago. Rather, it should address the issue and train people to that effect.

The Senator mentioned boundaries, which are a huge issue. I am not talking necessarily about postgraduate students in this regard. We spoke about other students, such as mature students, and the pressures they are under, as well as academics themselves. Boundary training is a huge issue. It surprises me that this is the case, however. I was not aware of this issue until I began working in the sector seven or eight years ago. It surprises me that things we take for granted in here about boundaries are not understood. There might be some cultural issues in that regard. There is a need for oversight and a single investigations unit, although maybe I should not call it that. We need to make one policy that covers the entire higher education sector.

Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Jones speaks well on behalf of both staff and students but the student voice is missing. If we can get-----

Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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AMLÉ was-----

Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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If we can get a submission from it-----

Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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We absolutely will. Representatives from AMLÉ were present at last week's committee meeting. It is not for a lack of interest. Given the time of year, AMLÉ did not have a person available to come in to give evidence, but we will follow up with it.

This has been an important meeting. The committee will carefully consider all the evidence, questions and recommendations put forward today. A lot of positive recommendations were made. While the committee had thought of some of them already, it is great to have experts putting weight behind those ideas. Ultimately, the success of what we all do in our jobs is not about the policies on the shelf. Rather, it is measured in results and whether every student and staff member has the confidence that if something goes wrong, they will be heard, respected and looked after and that justice will be done for them. That is the reason we are all here. We know we have a lot of positive advocates, and there is positive work ongoing in the sector. We want to drive them on and support them in that regard. I thank the witnesses for their expertise and continued support and commitment in making our higher education sector safer and better for everyone.

The committee will meet in private session at 3 p.m. on Monday, 29 June 2026.