Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 23 September 2026
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science
Sexual Violence and Harassment Policies and Procedures in Higher Education Institutions: Discussion (Resumed)
2:00 am
Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Apologies have been received from Senators Paul Daly and Kennelly. All the attendees are very welcome to the meeting. It is great to see such a full house.
I ask those attending remotely to put themselves on mute when not contributing in order to prevent any background or feedback noise. I remind all in attendance to ensure that their mobile telephones are switched off or on silent mode. 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 indicate by raising their hand.
Witnesses attending within the precincts of Leinster House are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their contributions at the committee. This means that they have an absolute defence against any defamation action in relation to anything they say at the meeting. However, witnesses are expected not to abuse this privilege and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure that does not happen. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that witnesses comply with any such direction.
Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person or entity outside the Houses or an official of the Houses either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.
Today's meeting is to discuss sexual violence and harassment policies and procedures in higher education institutions. I ask members and witnesses to avoid specific cases and to engage solely on policies and procedures. I welcome the following witnesses: from Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éirinn, AMLÉ, Mr. Daniel Walsh, president, Ms Emily Roberts-Smyth, vice president for citizenship and social liberation, and Ms Annie Forde, vice president for postgraduate affairs; from Trinity College Dublin, Professor Lorraine Leeson, vice president for equity, equality, diversity and inclusion, Ms Rachel Skelly, dignity, respect and consent response manager, and Ms Elaine Mears, co-ordinator of the national Speak Out office; from University College Cork, UCC, Professor Stephen Byrne, deputy president and registrar, Professor Louise Crowley, director of the bystander intervention programme, and Mr. Michael Hanrahan, head of employee relations, specialist support and resolution services; and from the University of Limerick, UL, Professor Patricia Mannix McNamara, interim director of human rights, equality, diversity and inclusion, and Ms Maria Healy, sexual violence and harassment prevention manager. They are all very welcome to today's meeting.
I invite Ms Roberts-Smyth to make her opening statement on behalf of AMLÉ. She has five minutes to do so.
Ms Emily Roberts-Smyth:
I thank the members of the committee for their invitation. For students, sexual violence and harassment are not simply matters of policy and procedure. They are matters of safety, dignity, education and belonging. Ireland has made important progress. We have a national framework on ending sexual violence and harassment, institutional policies and procedures, the Speak Out reporting tool, dedicated structures and national data collection.
What is needed now is to ask a more fundamental question. Do these systems actually work for students? The evidence suggests that there is still a significant gap. In the 2021 national survey, only 11% of students agreed that they understood what happened when a student reported sexual violence or harassment to his or her institution.
That means the overwhelming majority of students surveyed did not feel they understood what would happen if they came forward.
For us, this is a serious issue. A reporting procedure cannot be genuinely accessible if students do not know where to go, what their options are, what happens after they report, or what support they can expect. We see another important gap in the national Speak Out data. Between 2022 and 2024, 1,011 staff and students made anonymous reports through participating institutions, yet only 12% of students who disclosed through Speak Out subsequently made a formal complaint to their higher education institution. We should not assume that there is one reason for that. Students have identified a range of barriers, including concerns that nothing would be done and concerns about having sufficient proof.
The gap itself matters. Anonymous disclosure can be an important first step, but it cannot be the end point of our response. Students need to know that if they come forward, they will be listened to, supported and given clear information about their options. For AMLÉ, that means accessible, trauma-informed and survivor-centred procedures. It means that students should be able to continue their education safely while a process is ongoing, with appropriate support around accommodation, attendance, examinations and academic life. It also means accountability. We need to move beyond asking whether an institution has a policy and start asking whether that policy is implemented, understood, resourced and actually delivering for students.
I want to make a broader point today. If we are serious about ending sexual violence, responsibility cannot sit solely with higher education institutions. Students live their lives across campuses, accommodation, workplaces, nightlife, public spaces and increasingly online. Prevention therefore has to extend beyond the university gate. Within AMLÉ's mandate on ending violence against women and people of minoritised genders, we want to develop a national charter for ending sexual violence and harassment. We want Government to commit to that charter alongside higher and further education institutions, student unions, nightlife and hospitality organisations, sporting and cultural organisations, media organisations and other relevant bodies. We do not want another document to gather dust. We want clear commitments around prevention, education, safety, reporting, accountability and culture change.
The Government must lead by example. That includes recognising the role it has to play in online safety, including tackling environments where misogyny, sexual harassment and image-based abuse can be enabled or amplified, but it also means looking at traditional media. The way sexual violence is reported matters. How survivors are described matters and how cases are framed and how much prominence is given to perpetrators can influence how society understands sexual violence. We need responsible reporting that protects the dignity of survivors rather than turning their trauma into a spectacle.
We cannot talk about student safety without talking about student accommodation. Students living in digs and other forms of accommodation where they have limited protections can find themselves in situations where leaving an unsafe environment is incredibly difficult. AMLÉ believes the Government should review the protections available to students in digs and other licence-based accommodation, with a particular focus on what happens when accommodation becomes unsafe. Students should never feel that they have to remain in an unsafe living environment because they have nowhere else to go.
Students must have a meaningful role in designing and evaluating these systems. The HEA's framework review recognises the importance of student and survivor voices in the design, delivery and evaluation of this work. Students should not simply be consulted after a policy has been written. Students should help shape it. We are also awaiting the findings of the 2026 national survey of student and staff experiences. We believe those findings should be used to examine not only the prevalence of sexual violence and harassment, but whether students understand their options, whether they feel safe coming forward, and whether existing systems are working.
Ultimately, our ambition should be bigger than improving a complaints procedure. We want to build a culture where sexual violence is prevented, where students know where to turn when something goes wrong, where survivors are supported, and where every organisation understands its responsibility to create a safer Ireland. Ireland has built important foundations. Now we must build on them. We need to move from response to prevention, from policy to implementation, and from individual institutional responsibility to shared societal responsibility. This is the ambition that I will have in my role at AMLÉ.
Professor Lorraine Leeson:
I thank the committee for the opportunity to address the Houses of the Oireachtas on Trinity College Dublin's response to sexual violence, sexual abuse and image-based abuse. I am joined today by my colleagues Ms Rachel Skelly, Trinity's dignity, respect and consent response manager, and Ms Elaine Mears, co-ordinator of the Speak Out national office, which is based in Trinity. At Trinity, we recognise that universities occupy a position of profound trust. We are communities where students and staff learn, work, live and develop relationships. With that comes a responsibility to provide a safe, respectful and supportive environment, and to respond effectively and compassionately when harm occurs.
Over the past number of years, Trinity has significantly strengthened its institutional response to sexual violence and sexual harassment. Our work is guided by the Higher Education Authority's consent framework and by national strategies aimed at preventing domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. A key milestone was the introduction of Trinity's stand-alone sexual misconduct policy in 2023, supported by institutional procedures for addressing sexual misconduct and ensuring access to appropriate supports.
In 2024, we established the dignity, respect and consent service, providing a dedicated and trauma-informed service for members of our university community. This service supports individuals who have experienced bullying, harassment, sexual harassment, and sexual violence. It provides information, guidance and support throughout institutional processes, while also helping to ensure that those processes are conducted fairly and sensitively. We have sought to ensure that individuals can disclose concerns through accessible pathways. This includes Speak Out, an anonymous disclosure tool available to students, staff and other members of our community. Alongside this, we provide access to trained counsellors and specialist support advisors and we facilitate referrals to external support services where appropriate.
Prevention is equally important. Trinity delivers consent education and awareness programmes for students and staff, including active consent training, orientation sessions for incoming students, bystander intervention programmes and training on responding to disclosures. This academic year, Trinity has also launched uphold, a new student ambassador programme which promotes peer-led prevention activities, ensuring that the student voice is at the fore of our work in this area. These initiatives aim to foster a culture of respect, consent and accountability and to address the underlying causes of harmful behaviour before incidents occur.
While progress has been made, significant challenges remain, particularly in relation to image-based abuse. Image-based abuse is a serious form of sexual misconduct that can have devastating consequences for those affected. The non-consensual sharing, creation or distribution of intimate images can cause profound psychological distress, damage reputations, disrupt educational experiences and leave individuals feeling vulnerable and powerless. Within the university environment, where social, academic and professional networks often overlap, these impacts can be especially acute.
Trinity has worked to ensure that image-based abuse is explicitly recognised within our policies and procedures as a serious breach of community standards. Reports are treated with urgency, support is offered regardless of whether a formal complaint is pursued, and we seek, where possible and within our authority, to support efforts to remove harmful content and connect individuals with appropriate services. We have also expanded educational initiatives addressing digital consent, online behaviour and the risks associated with image-sharing. However, we recognise that this is an area that is evolving rapidly. Technological developments continue to present new challenges, requiring institutions, legislators, regulators and technology companies to adapt continually.
Looking ahead, several priorities are critical. Continued investment in specialist training for those receiving and investigating complaints remains essential. Stronger collaboration between higher education institutions, An Garda Síochána, Coimisiún na Meán and specialist support organisations can help to ensure a more co-ordinated response. Equally, policies and practices must continue to evolve in line with emerging technologies and changing forms of online harm.
Trinity College Dublin is committed to a whole-of-institution approach to preventing and responding to sexual violence, sexual harassment and image-based abuse. In acknowledging that this category of abuse is covered by criminal law, we are also committed to providing support and direction to those who wish to raise complaints with An Garda Síochána. We recognise both our limitations and our responsibilities. We are committed to strengthening supports, responding effectively when harm occurs and fostering a culture in which dignity, respect and consent are fundamental values of our university community.
Professor Stephen Byrne:
Good afternoon, Cathaoirleach and members of the committee. I am the deputy president and registrar at University College Cork. I am accompanied by my colleagues Professor Louise Crowley, director of the bystander intervention programme and Mr. Micheal Hanrahan, head of employee relations, specialist support and resolution services in the department of people and culture. I thank the committee for the invitation to meet it today to discuss the topic of sexual violence and harassment policies and procedures at UCC, including the bystander intervention programme.
In 2019, UCC committed to implementation of the HEA framework for consent in higher education Institutions. In terms of governance, UCC’s ending sexual violence and harassment work is overseen by a dedicated steering committee, which I chair and includes representatives from across the university community. Implementation of this work is supported through the office for equality, diversity and inclusion, the student experience office and the people and culture department.
University College Cork also participates in national ESVH groups for higher education, with peer support and learning being key to successful implementation of this work. Since 2019, mandatory in-person orientation sessions have been delivered in UCC to all incoming first-year students, international students, student leaders, clubs and societies and peer support leaders.
This year alone, 4,470 incoming students received a dedicated ESVH session, which included introductions to the bystander intervention programme and the active consent workshops from the UCC and
bystander intervention team and our partnerships with the active consent programme in the University of Galway and the Sexual Violence Centre Cork. These training programmes are offered to all staff and students throughout the year and a dedicated online module entitled "Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention", RSVP, is also available to all first-year students.
The sector-leading UCC bystander intervention programme, identified in the national framework as a key targeted educational initiative, is an evidence-based educational initiative that empowers students and staff to recognise, challenge and safely respond to sexual harassment, sexual violence, discrimination and other harmful behaviours. Developed by Professor Crowley in 2016, the programme combines five self-directed online learning modules with a facilitated in-person scenario-based workshop that equips participants with practical bystander intervention skills. Its core message is that everyone has a role to play in supporting others, whether by checking in with someone, helping them leave an unsafe situation, directing them to support services, or reporting inappropriate behaviour through established institutional procedures. The programme is embedded across a wide range of our academic disciplines for both staff and student cohorts, and student leadership groups at UCC, helping to foster a culture of shared responsibility, respect and inclusion. Intervention skills are transferable to address all forms of harassment, discrimination and violence.
Over the ten years, the programme has demonstrated significant impact, with participants reporting increased understanding of consent, sexual harassment and violence, as well as greater confidence and willingness to intervene in harmful situations. During the 2025-2026 academic year, 38 workshops reached 688 students and 137 staff, while digital badges have been awarded to more than 960 participants since 2019. Beyond UCC, the initiative is being rolled out nationally across the higher education sector, supported by funding from the Higher Education Authority, HEA, and collaboration with universities, technological universities and colleges throughout Ireland. Through training, resource sharing, tailored support and cross-sector partnership, UCC is helping to establish a common approach to bystander intervention and create safer, more inclusive campus environments nationwide.
With regard to policies and procedures, allegations of sexual misconduct against UCC staff members and UCC students are currently addressed under UCC's duty of respect and right to dignity at work, DRRD, policy and the UCC student rules. University College Cork's duty of respect and right to dignity at work policy is the university's policy designed to protect staff from sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, harassment and bullying, and it applies to allegations made against staff across the university. The policy is founded on the principle that all employees have the right to work in an environment characterised by dignity, respect, equality and safety. The policy defines sexual harassment as any unwanted conduct of a sexual nature, whether it is physical, verbal or non-verbal, that violates a person's dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. It emphasises that the impact of the behaviour on the recipient, rather than the intention of the perpetrator, is the key consideration. The policy provides a range of reporting and resolution options including individual action, informal resolution, support from trained contact and designated persons and, where necessary, formal investigations and disciplinary processes. Throughout, it seeks to ensure confidentiality, protection from victimisation and fair treatment of all parties, and adherence to principles of natural justice while maintaining a workplace culture based on dignity, respect and equality. University College Cork addresses allegations of sexual misconduct against students through our student rules and associated disciplinary procedures by defining such behaviour as a serious breach of the standards of conduct expected by students.
Students are expected to treat others with dignity, respect and equality, and complaints of sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, sexual violence or related inappropriate behaviour can be reported to the university's established processes. Reports are assessed in the first instance by the Student Life Office and may be dealt with through informal resolution where appropriate and with the agreement of the parties, or through formal investigation and disciplinary procedures in more serious cases. A designated officer within the Student Life Office initially considers the report and makes contact with the reporting party to acknowledge receipt of the report and to offer to meet the person to discuss their report, explain the process that will follow under the student rules and outline the supports available to the reporting party, including the student counselling and development service and the student health service. The student rules also allow for precautionary measures to be imposed at any stage of the process, including imposing conditions on the responding party, temporary academic accommodations and suspension in exceptional circumstances. The student rules emphasise confidentiality, fair procedures, natural justice and support for all parties involved. Serious breaches may result in disciplinary sanctions up to and including expulsion from the university.
Professor Patricia Mannix McNamara:
Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis an gcoiste. At the outset, it must be reiterated to the committee here today that University of Limerick, UL, is committed to creating a safe, respectful and supportive environment in which sexual and gender-based violence and harassment, SGBVH, are not tolerated. This goes beyond just a commitment to our community and is aligned with the national Higher Education Framework for Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment whereby emphasis is placed on prevention, education, accessible reporting, and appropriate institutional responses and supports for those affected. Our approach is grounded in a human rights-based perspective through our public sector duty commitment in how the university fulfils its responsibility to respect, protect and promote human rights across institutional life. Human rights are not separate from the everyday work of the university; they inform how our decisions are made, and how the university responds when rights may be at risk. Sexual and gender-based violence and harassment are fundamentally human rights issues, specifically rights to dignity, equality, bodily autonomy, safety and participation.
Our commitment to ending sexual violence and harassment is evident in our policies and procedures, namely our sexual health and well-being policy for staff and students, our sexual violence and harassment policy for students and staff, and our sexual violence and harassment procedures, which were ratified by the university’s governing authority in 2024. These policies are further supported by our domestic violence and abuse policy, also ratified in 2024, and our dignity and respect policy and procedures for students and employees, which were ratified in January 2025. This was further supported by our RespectfUL Campus Safe Spaces Strong Voices campaign which we initiated in 2025. Its focus is to empower our community to stand up against unacceptable behaviour. Our equality policy also specifies that the university is committed to challenging all forms of inequality, of which gender discrimination is a specified ground. These commitments have been transferred into real actions aligned with our policy development. The appointment of the sexual violence and harassment prevention and response manager has been pivotal in the implementation of these policies and procedures, as has the establishment of the dedicated ESVH function that provides focus and resources for prevention, awareness, education and support.
We seek to engage students, staff and the wider campus community in promoting dignity, respect and consent, while ensuring that clear information on policies, reporting pathways and supports is accessible across the campus. A key element of this is the integration of mandatory consent education into the student orientation programme. Embedding consent at orientation provides an early opportunity to establish clear expectations for respectful behaviour and serves as a critical point for introducing students to the university’s ESVH policies, our reporting pathways and our available support services, ensuring that students understand both their rights and the resources available to them should they experience or witness SVH.
At UL, annual reports related to consent and to our ending sexual violence and harassment framework activities are made to the university governing authority and to its people and culture committee and its student experience access and equality committee. Reports are made to the academic council, the management council and university executive committee, ensuring that ESVH is an active part of the governing body, academic council and executive committee agendas and that they are given time for discussion.
Our policies are supported by training. Dignity and respect training is mandatory, comprising both online and in-person training, and requiring completion of both components.
Training such as trauma-informed approaches to sensitive disclosures, let us talk about race and bystander training are available to staff. A bystander module for students designed by UCC, which this committee has just heard about, is also available on our virtual learning platform. Bespoke training, such as EmilyTest training, is made available for gender-based violence, as well as bespoke sexual violence and harassment, SVH, and trauma training for key stakeholders and decision makers, such as our first point of contact and complaints personnel.
We continue to strengthen pathways into specialist services so that people are not left to navigate the consequences of SVH without appropriate support. We have established a monthly outpatient sexual assault treatment unit, SATU, follow-up clinic on campus. This service is not limited to the university community. We provide access to people across the wider mid-west region, which currently does not have a 24-hour openly accessible SATU. The clinic in the University Hospital Limerick must be accessed through gardaí. Out of hours, those who have experienced sexual violence may have to travel to Galway or Cork on public transport. The establishment of an openly accessible 24-hour SATU would be valuable in the region, and we would welcome the support of committee members in advocating for this much-needed service.
University of Limerick is also contributing to the development of an evidence base in this area. In partnership with the University of Galway, University College Dublin, the University of Limerick and I, as principal investigator, PI, led the co-funded research, Heard, Seen and Safe, examining the experiences of staff and students in disclosing and reporting sexual violence and harassment to higher education institutions. The research reinforces the importance of moving beyond policies alone towards whole-institution, human rights-based approaches where people know where to seek help, disclosures are met with appropriate support and action, immediate safety is prioritised, and formal processes are trauma-informed, fair and responsive.
Challenges remain but together we can address them. Best practice evidences that formal and informal processes need to be survivor-centred and trauma-informed. Dedicated, trauma-informed trained investigation procedures are essential. This would be aided by the establishment of a trauma-informed panel of investigators from which all HEIs could draw. This would advance coherence and consistency of experience of investigation across HEIs. We also advocate that trauma-informed practice in universities, at the most basic level, should include universal awareness, that is, that all staff have a basic understanding of trauma, including, but not limited to, sexual violence or harassment, appropriate responses to disclosure, boundaries, confidentiality and signposting. Such institution-wide implementation requires resourcing. Implementation of the framework is resource-intensive, needing sustained investment in dedicated expertise, prevention, education, training, support services, data collection and institutional response mechanisms. While significant progress has been made, there remains important work to do. Consideration of increased and sustained allocation of resources in this area is essential to enable institutions to build on progress and fully meet the ambitions of the framework.
We, along with our HEI colleagues before the committee today and those who appeared earlier this year, would welcome the committee’s support in securing these resources in order to deliver an effective trauma-informed service to those affected by SVH and allow for universities to offer best practice. Ending sexual violence and harassment requires culture change. SVH can land anywhere in society. Multimedia campaigns, such as the campaign developed by Cuan in 2025, actively contribute to raising awareness and encouraging help seeking among survivors. Similar investment for tailored national awareness raising for education settings would greatly aid our work in ending sexual violence. With sustained funding, dedicated resources and a clear commitment and investment in universal trauma-informed university practice, we can move beyond responding and awareness raising towards preventing harm, supporting survivors and transforming campus culture well into the future. We echo the call to urge the Oireachtas to support this work and invest in the structures that will ensure safer higher education communities for generations to come. I thank the committee. We look forward to questions and observations from members.
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms Roberts-Smyth and Professors Byrne, Mannix McNamara and Leeson for their informative presentations. The level of improvement in awareness and training that I can see across the board is commendable. It is fantastic to see the policies outlined, such as human rights training. Looking back over the past three years in which this has become more of an issue and received more focus, have the witnesses seen results by way of reduced incidents of sexual harassment or violence? There are a lot of programmes, training and awareness, which is good, but how is the trend going? Is it delivering results? What is one of the main drivers or causes of this problem? Obviously, there is much more of a focus on this issue in the past couple of years, but there appears to be a big increase as well. I seek the witnesses’ thoughts on the causes of this.
Ms Rachel Skelly:
In respect of the first question around training driving reduction, at the moment, as a result of the barriers to reporting and the shame and blame placed on victim-survivors, the impact we hope to see is an increase in reporting. We are trying to reduce that barrier. Through the establishment of the policies, we are modelling trust and trying to break down the barriers that we see in the Speak Out report, such as the fear of not being believed or that nothing will be done. By modelling that behaviour through implementing the policies and highlighting awareness raising through training, the goal is to see an increase in reporting. We are not quite at the stage of reducing the prevalence rate. We need to get to the point of understanding the prevalence rate within higher education and increasing the reporting. We will then see a reduction in prevalence into the future through those actions.
Professor Louise Crowley:
Relying on data when addressing the problem and thereby reducing the prevalence, which is the traditional barometer of any implementation plan to address issues, does not apply in this context. As my colleague said, in the bystander training we deliver in UCC, we are helping students and staff become better aware of what problematic behaviour looks like. In my experience, from the learning and being exposed to what problematic behaviour looks like, students who have come to me with disclosures are suddenly realising that they are in a toxic relationship, have been treated in an inappropriate way or, in some tragic instances, have in fact been raped and it was not their fault.
Through education, we are shattering the normalisation of the certain level of sexual harassment and abuse that most university students experience, whether on a night out or otherwise. We are helping them to realise that none of it is okay. Therefore, a person realising that they have been treated in an inappropriate way is going to lead to greater disclosures and reporting. As Ms Skelly said, that is what we are trying to encourage in order that we shatter the illusion that any of it is okay or not worth reporting. We are validating the experience of individuals who are realising that they may have been a victim of sexual harassment or violence.
Professor Stephen Byrne:
I concur with AMLE’s call for more formal reporting. We see an under-reporting through Speak Out. We know there is an under-reporting of instances. We all welcome greater reporting because reporting through the anonymous tool guides individuals to the appropriate resources and services on that disclosure page. By logging into the Speak Out tool, those individuals can seek the supports and advice and then come forward. Through training and acknowledgement, we need to create a culture and encourage individuals to come forward to seek this help and advice from the institution in order that we can start to tackle the problem.
Coming back to the Deputy’s question, we are not seeing a decline in the reporting in the past few years. We have not yet seen sufficient reporting across the institutions either.
Professor Lorraine Leeson:
One of the paradoxical pieces of the work we do – we have had to say this to our management groups in the universities - is that we will be successful if we have an increase in reporting rates. That is what we are seeing. We are seeing an increase in reporting because we have built systems, policies and support mechanisms. As committee members will hear later in this conversation, we are putting so much of our attention into responding to this previously untapped need that we do not have the capacity or funding to put money and attention into the prevention piece. That is what will drive change in the longer term.
Professor Patricia Mannix McNamara:
I would reiterate what my colleague has just said. I would also like to address the second part of the question, which is why we are seeing this. Issues of sexual harassment and sexual violence are not new. They have existed for millennia. We are focused very much on our survivor supports and responses. Our space and resources to look into perpetrator behaviour and work with perpetrators is a gap that requires resourcing and attention, so we are addressing the perpetration of this before we are getting to the response piece. We are in the very early stages in this area and it needs a lot of support and work.
Ms Maria Healy:
To build on what my colleagues have said, sexual violence and harassment thrive in silence. Bringing the conversation to our campuses, opening up these threads of conversation for our students and staff is a massive undertaking. Building on the knowledge that they are coming into third level education with is really important. To answer the question of whether what we are doing is delivering results in terms of a declining prevalence, as others have said, it is the reporting that we need to see. It is about being able to build on those experiences and meet people where they are at. That is where we are going to see how much change we are making. It is about getting people to trust those systems we have put in place and getting them to come forward to the help they need.
Ms Elaine Mears:
It is a really important question. What are the causes of sexual violence? A lot of the time, the sexual violence is nearly the symptom and we need to treat the root cause of it. How we do that is so important. Ms Roberts-Smyth touched on the whole-of-society approach. We could look at this through an ecological framework. Dr. Michelle Walsh, the CEO of MOVE Ireland, has proposed this fantastic framework where we look at all of the layers of influence in a person's life. We start with the family, the attitudes and belief systems that are instilled in the person at that stage. We look at the other, intersecting layers around that, the wider community and at governmental, policy and EU level. What are the messages and value systems we are hearing and receiving? Funding decisions communicate priority. If we want sexual violence to end, we have the power to do that, but we need to target prevention measures at every layer of the individual's reality.
Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Like Deputy Ó Súilleabháin, I welcome the contributions. It is clear that a lot of detailed work is ongoing in a very important area. Professor Leeson mentioned digital media and platforms. We heard on the radio this morning about some deplorable videos in regard to illegal activity and motoring offences, which are still up on digital platforms. Has Professor Leeson seen any meaningful response by the digital platforms in respect of removing materials? Are they responding in any meaningful way to Coimisiún na Meán or the different authorities?
I have to go to another meeting but I have a question for Professor Mannix McNamara about the outpatients sexual assault treatment unit they have set up in the college. Are clinicians and therapists attending there to provide supports for those who attend? Is that provided by University Hospital Limerick?
Professor Lorraine Leeson:
In Trinity, we have had engagement with Coimisiún na Meán for sure. In turn, it would be engaging with the tech companies. We have not had to have direct engagement ourselves. In the scope of my own experience, we would certainly be open to doing whatever we needed to do to push for any take-down notices where necessary. However, we are also very conscious that, within the university, should some images be shared, the scope of our authority is limited to the materials shared on internal services and systems. That is a big challenge. That is why we are very much in favour of and watching carefully the conversations around engagement with the digital media companies and the processes that can be put in place through regulation.
Ms Maria Healy:
The follow-up clinic we have in UHL is serviced by the sexual assault treatment unit, SATU, clinic in Cork. They approached us in a collaborative project to find a location to have their service. They found that people who were attending their initial appointments in the SATU clinics in Cork and Galway were not attending follow-up appointments for various reasons. They were looking to have a base in the mid-west community to do their follow-up appointments. It is fully run and operated by the SATU Cork clinicians and nurses. They have a clinic with us once a month on the university campus, servicing not only the members of our own community but also the mid-west in general.
Professor Patricia Mannix McNamara:
That is a follow-up clinic. A student or someone who experiences sexual violence or sexual assault has to travel or has to make a disclosure to the Garda to access the services in Limerick. The issue around reporting is that it is a choice and a human right to report. It can take up to seven years for somebody who has experienced violence to report. It is quite a difficult journey to report. For a traumatised person in the moment, having to report to get the services they need is problematic, we would argue. We would advocate strongly for the need for a SATU clinic in the region.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their contributions. They have all talked about the many procedures and policies they have across the different universities. They are all really important. We have had representatives of other colleges in front of us and there is a variance between the procedures and policies. I think Professor Byrne referred to this. Would it be beneficial to have a common policy and approach across all universities, colleges and places of higher education? A number of the witnesses have mentioned how mandatory education is coming in for first years in particular. Could someone avoid that for any reason, for example, out of illness or if they had to go to something else? How is that followed up? Is it an in-person session? I know some first years who did not actually attend this. It is important and the education piece is vital if we are going to ever address this scourge in our society. As Ms Roberts-Smyth said, it is a whole-of-society issue but everybody has a part to play.
The trauma-informed panel of investigators is an issue that has been raised with us before. If something is reported and it needs to be investigated, is it very difficult to find independent investigators who have the right experience to do that? Do the witnesses all agree that it would be very beneficial?
Professor Stephen Byrne:
I would certainly endorse the common approach to a trained panel of investigators. It certainly would be beneficial on a national basis to have that resource available to all the institutions. We would wholeheartedly support that and work with the creation of such a panel. We have on occasion had investigators. To the best of our ability, we have sourced individuals who have been trauma-informed. We do have trauma-informed training for all first-line staff responders within the institution. To answer the Senator's question about mandatory training, as part of our orientation we have mandatory training. All our first year students are auto-enrolled in the bystander and consent training module as part of their virtual learning environment. We actively follow up and are repeatedly chasing. Over 90%, I think the figure is 95% or 96%, of our students say they feel more confident after the training. It is about word of mouth, that they actively encourage their colleagues to participate in it. We do not log and see if every first year has done it. We know that 4,370 sat in the room this September and took the training. We also provide that training to all our clubs and societies executives.
We have a peer support group network that we provide the training to. Again, it is through the repeated availability of the training throughout the year, going to clubs, societies and in outreach to local schools. A lot of the students in the Cork region, through the bystander work of my expert colleague next door to me, receive the bystander training through their transition year programmes in local schools. They are coming into university now having received this training, and then we are adding the act of consent on top of it. It is the building blocks that we are providing. To come back to Senator Tully's question, we do not just tick and make sure we have 100%.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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Does that training include reporting procedures?
Professor Louise Crowley:
If I could just come in briefly, I will add a few small bits to that. When our first years come in, they receive the orientation training on the very first day at university, which is a combination of an introduction to and understanding of key bystander tools, understanding the importance of recognising problematic behaviour and developing that sense of individual and collective responsibility to contribute to a more respectful environment. For the last two years, every first year student - I know this because my son just started university - walks around campus for the whole first day with a yellow band that says "active bystander campus" and a QR code to our training and to the supports. From their very first moment stepping into UCC, we are helping them to understand that these are the values that we espouse and that we look to all of them to play their role in cultivating a respectful environment.
The Senator asked a very good question. For those who do not go the first day or dodge out of the bystander training, we have a range of ways of reaching students. Very briefly, on the bystander team, my colleague Céline Griffin has developed the relationship and sexual violence prevention bespoke first year module that includes the link to the active consent training and gives them the key learnings. It is automatically on the students' dashboard. Within a week, 740 students had completed it and 98% of them said it was very worthwhile and all first year students should take it.
On top of that, the programme is embedded in more than ten modules now - ten disciplines across the university. For example, I teach on the MA in women's studies and the students complete bystander training as my assignment. All first year law students now must do bystander training and it is a requirement to pass the module. We are in chemistry and all kinds of modules around the university, as that is another way of reaching students.
Finally, we have cross-cutting in all clubs. Every club we established has a new officer on its executive called the respect officer. The bystander team works with the club's or society's president and they now have a dedicated officer in their club. We give three-hour group workshops. We have all of the rugby players, for example, in the room - male and female - and they learn together about what problematic behaviour looks like and hear about one another's experiences. My point there is that we can reach students not just on day 1, but right through their academic experience.
Mr. Michael Hanrahan:
I will just add another point there. Before our fourth year pharmacy students go on placement, they receive consent and bystander training, so if they are going into the workplace, they are trained beforehand. We are working with our work integrated learning unit now to try to roll out training for everybody going out on a university placement. They would receive this training prior to going and integrating with a work or university placement so that they might become a champion and an active participant in the workplace.
Ms Rachel Skelly:
One of the key things that we have been doing in terms of driving our training is ensuring that we are meeting students where they are at in terms of their interaction with college life. This year, we have been engaging with our entertainments, or ENTS, officer from our students union, who has now made a little tick box on their ticketing system for all ENTS events to ask whether the student has done their consent training. We are building it into their life cycle in that way. We are also engaging with our clubs and societies to ensure that where they are going on trips or doing big events, there is an option within their ticketing systems to ask people if they have done consent training. We are building it into their culture.
Further to this, I will just bring the discussion back to the trauma-informed investigations panel. This is really important. It has come up quite a few times in the committee previously, and I will provide some of the background around it. This has come through the implementation plan, which is a complementary document to the ESVH framework from 2022. It highlights action 11. We conducted a feasibility study through the expert advisory group. The next steps within that are to identify how to operationalise that panel. We welcome that this may be a recommendation from the committee. It would be welcome for the sector but we need to understand how we can operationalise this in a way that is safe for our staff and students with a robust governance and oversight structure and a sustainable funding model.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the witnesses for attending and for their opening statements. On that last point, was Ms Skelly a member of the advisory working group?
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The Irish Federation of University Teachers, IFUT, was very strong on how this had clearly been somewhat deficient. Galway said that it required national leadership and partnership. Limerick has spoken about the feasibility of establishing a shared national investigation panel in terms of investigation and promoting consistency of practice across the sector. In the absence of that, what does Ms Skelly's institution do to investigate an allegation?
Ms Rachel Skelly:
Depending on the nuance of the particular complaint, it could be appointed to a senior member of staff internally who would investigate. If it is the case that it might be sexual harassment, I would provide training and a briefing around trauma-informed investigative practices. However, we would also go to external investigators and we would have to procure them on a needs basis.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Are they trained in trauma-informed practices?
Ms Rachel Skelly:
There are no specific guidelines at the moment in terms of how to conduct trauma-informed investigations. The term "trauma-informed practice" can often be utilised as a bit of a buzzword, even where there is not always that backing around it. Our colleagues in Atlantic Technological University, ATU, and Technological University of the Shannon, TUS, are currently leading a Higher Education Authority-funded project on establishing best practice guidelines in conducting trauma-informed investigations into sexual harassment and violence in higher education. That will be the key for us in terms of guidance documentation.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. Do the other two institutions rely on the same process currently?
Professor Louise Crowley:
This emphasises the importance of developing a shared investigating panel because that is what gives rise to consistency and a shared understanding for all parties of what the process looks like. That is critical, particularly for any vulnerable person. When that person wonders whether they should go forward and report, they will now know what the process will look like and that there are trauma-informed investigators for whom this is not a new issue because they are looking at it in different institutions when they are called upon. We are trying to build up and do the best we can at the moment with guidelines but, ultimately, if we had a cross-sectoral investigatory body, it would be working along the same line with the same guidelines.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Does Limerick use the same process?
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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When the IFUT was here, I developed a bit of a concern that current practices were not trauma informed and the victim was facing into a quagmire of legal argument, paperwork and proof, only compounding the trauma that they were suffering. I am somewhat relieved to hear that Ms Skelly will provide trauma-informed training to the people within her institution who will undertake the investigations, but I remain somewhat concerned that it is not a universal practice.
Professor Patricia Mannix McNamara:
We seek to have people with trauma-informed training. That is a priority for us. We are drawing from a small pool when we are drawing externally. Trying to make sure we can get the trauma-informed specialist can delay processes. That is one of the reasons we are advocating so strongly to say that a panel that has a shared set of principles and a shared training in trauma-informed investigatory practice is important. The other piece that is of benefit in this is that we should then begin to see consistency in outcome. That is something that we really require in the sector.
Professor Louise Crowley:
If it was ten years ago, pre the introduction of the framework, Deputy Connolly's concerns could possibly be very valid because we had never had a cross-institutional conversation about the issue, its prevalence and responses. Now, however, I can say that colleagues across the sector work collaboratively. I have sat on working groups with a range of people in this room, sharing resources and experiences. Even though the gold standard is having that investigatory body, I would pretty much be confident in the interim to say that the old days of legal jargon and the victim being further victimised with a complaint are gone. I would like to think that the landscape has significantly changed.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I would really like to think that as well. We would all share that desire.
One of the things a national body might also give us is data. It has been difficult to elicit clear data from each of the institutions that has met the committee. How often does each institution have recourse to the engagement of an outside body in an investigation?
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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They are trauma trained.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The opening statement was not clear. It clarified the steps the institution takes in terms of an accusation of sexual harassment against a staff member. It also referred to duty, respect and the right to dignity at work and the support for a student who might have suffered sexual harassment at the hands of another student, but it was not clear what happens when an allegation is made against a staff member.
Professor Stephen Byrne:
If the allegation is made against a staff member, as Mr. Hanrahan said we have a designated liaison person who is allocated to that student and works and supports them throughout the process. They will also provide the student with the guidance of student counselling and health. We have an agreement with SATU in Cork city, whereby it will come to UCC. If there is a discussion with gardaí, and that is the process the student wishes to take, that staff member can assist the student and that meeting can take place on the UCC campus. Gardaí will come to assist the student so that they are in a comfortable environment.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Is that a discrete staff role?
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Is it the case that a number of people are trauma informed and can undertake that role?
Ms Rachel Skelly:
Absolutely. In terms of providing the figures, I am conscious that our number of formal complaints is quite low and it is best practice not to report on numbers below ten. I am quite conscious of the victim survivors who may be watching this. My priority is to ensure we are not identifying any of those victim survivors in this meeting.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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My apologies if I have asked a question that is impertinent. I am trying to understand the real demand for a national investigative service and how important it is that we put pressure on the Department to establish it. Unfortunately, one thing that can do that is data.
Ms Rachel Skelly:
Having just launched our policies, we are highlighting and starting to break down those barriers in terms of reporting. If we can show that we take this seriously, believe survivors and prove to them by our actions more than our words that we can provide a trauma-informed investigation with real outcomes, that will drive an increase in reporting. The UniSAFE survey in 2022 covered 15 countries and received about 42,000 respondents. It highlighted that 62% of respondents had experienced some form of gender-based violence in their time working and studying in university. If we consider those statistics at a Trinity level, we have about 22,000 students and just under 5,000 staff, which would equate to about 12,000 students and 3,000 staff in terms of prevalence. There is a drive and a need for better reporting procedures. However, until we can prove through our actions that individuals can trust the system and the institution, it is only through modelling that trust that we will see an increase in reporting.
Ms Maria Healy:
Since I started my role in the University of Limerick in November 2022, the number of disclosures I have received from staff and students has gone through the roof. It increased by 2,300% between 2022 and the end of the academic year in 2026. Formal reports are nowhere near that level. The changing landscape in terms of people coming forward to seek support from professionals will only translate into formal reports as we move forward with the implementation of the framework and the work continues. We are looking at things in-house and externally. Externally, there have been issues in terms of some of the companies-----
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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That is very relevant.
Ms Maria Healy:
It is absolutely relevant. There have not been issues with the University of Limerick, but there have been conversations that have come to the fore about how trauma informed the services we are using are. Now is the time to put the investigation panel in place before formal reports start to meet the disclosures. Once it gets to that point, the damage is done.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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We need to know how extensive the issue is given the engagement of these companies, which shows how relevant that information is. We want to know they know what they are doing and that they are trauma informed. We will come back to that.
Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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We are over time. I want to give Senator Harmon an opportunity to speak.
Laura Harmon (Labour)
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I thank everyone for their contributions today. The work the witnesses are doing is important. I am conscious that for many it is a part of their job and they do many other jobs on campuses. I acknowledge that our higher education institutions are underfunded. That is part of the problem. There is a funding deficit in general, and funding is required for specific elements. I commend Professor Crowley on the bystander intervention programme and how it has grown. It was developed in 2016. What changes has she seen since it was first developed, in terms of the landscape in general? Have there been particular challenges or changes that she has noticed?
Outside the college gates, in Cork UCC works closely with the sexual violence centre, SATU and the Garda. Would she support calls from Mary Crilly, who she mentioned in her statement, for stand-alone legislation on spiking? Would she like to make any comment on that? I am conscious that the university is meeting people at a certain point in their lives. When should this start in our broader education system? Should it start at primary school?
Professor Louise Crowley:
I thank the Senator. She has asked a range of questions and I will try to get to all of them.
The bystander intervention programme was launched in 2016. I am a professor of family law and do a lot of work in domestic and intimate partner abuse research and advocacy. I worked on a number of collaborations with the sexual violence centre, Mná Feasa and other organisations. I saw at an early stage that not only is sexual harassment and violence a societal issue, but there are challenges at third level for young people coming into university, the pressure to fit in and all of that. At the time, I was vice dean for student affairs in the law school and was very aware that students do not come to us with problems. We are their lecturers and we mark their assignments. There was huge reluctance to come forward. I also noted that when students came to us, they were almost always female. The male students were not forthcoming at all. That is what drove me to develop the bystander intervention programme which was piloted for two years in person. The feedback from students was phenomenal. In the focus groups, the students said if every person in UCC did the training overnight we would be on a different campus tomorrow because it is premised on educating people to recognise problematic behaviour and the range of such behaviour - there is no level that is acceptable.
The important element was developing a responsibility with one's peers for collective shared societal responsibility on campus and developing the skills to make safe and effective interventions which, of course, is critical. We do not want to escalate a situation or put a person who is being an active bystander in difficulty.
In terms of challenges, the biggest challenge I have faced over the past ten years has been recruitment of students. They all get it in first year, but of course it cannot be full training in the amount of time that is available. I secured mandatory training for first years from 2019, and I delivered that myself. Then in 2020, obviously it was online for a couple of years, but we brought in active consent so there was quite a rounded delivery. It is also available for all staff and all students. We developed a bespoke staff version in 2022. Every day somebody signs up; I get a notification at 6 p.m. Yesterday, I kept an eye on it and 12 students signed up from across various disciplines. There is a desire and an appetite, but in an ideal world everybody who comes to UCC would do the full training, would be aware and capable, and would desire to make a difference. The issue of mandatory and voluntary is challenging in this context because we have students who are victim survivors, but we deal with that anyway in our current approach.
As regards the impact, I can give the committee a couple of examples. We test impact with pre-training and post-training questionnaires, and we watch if the dial shifts. Very significantly, we ask questions like, "Do you better understand harmful behaviours?" and "Are you likely or very likely to make an intervention?". I will give one question which is, "Having completed the training, do you have greater confidence in intervening when you witness harassment or abuse?". Some 25.5% in the last academic year were very likely to make an intervention, and that went to 69.6%, but when you add likely and very likely, 95% of participants said they were now likely or very likely to make an intervention. That was 94% the previous year, 97% the year before that and 96% in 2022 and 2023. We are going from figures of around 30% to 50% before training, which is in itself commendable, and going right up to the high 90s afterwards.
When people do it as part of a sports group or a module where they do it with all their classmates, you have a changed environment because everybody is suddenly aware. We focus on the impact on the vulnerable person. This is worth noting. When I did the in-person delivery in 2016 and 2017, I would have had about 18 law students of all genders. When the female students shared their experiences of nights out - the young men were with them on those nights out - they spoke about the challenges, the fears and the planning. I literally watched the young men look at them as if to say, "Really? I was there, and I did not see it". Over the course of the six weeks, they went from thinking, "Why am I here?" to disbelief at the experiences and jaw-dropping. Physically and metaphorically, I saw them grow as allies and realise, "Wow, I can really help."
The feedback we get from the questionnaires, where they share if they have used their experiences, helps me to do this work every day. I will give a couple of quotes of what students have said. My favourite one is from a male student who said, "I helped a girl find her friends on a night out when her friends were lost and some guy would not take no for answer about going back with his mates. I'm 6ft 4, so I simply stood next to her and he scarpered like a startled dog." We very much teach non-confrontation and the five Ds of bystander intervention - direct, distract, delegate, delay and document - so that every student and staff member can do something, irrespective of their gender, size or where they are in the university, which is very important.
I would also like to highlight something from a staff member because I think it is very powerful, if you can give me one second to find it. It said:
I learned that meaningful change often relies not on those in authority, but on ordinary individuals willing to challenge inappropriate behaviour. The bystander project helped me see that I hold the power and responsibility to make a difference, no matter my position or length of time in the organisation.
Really what we are saying is that it is within all our gift to demand better and affect better. It is very important to see this as we reach students across the university and across disciplines, in sporting and club contexts, in their roles as peer leaders, as first years and right through clubs and societies. Our student union passed a motion several years ago to ensure that every member of the executive does the training.
I have one final thing about staff. It was very interesting, albeit it came from a tragic situation when Ashling Murphy was murdered. That week, we had double the number of male staff members to female staff members signing up. There was a realisation, particularly by men - I had lots of conversations locally and nationally in media - that they may not be the problem but they absolutely are part of the solution.
To answer the Senator's last question on when we start, it is a very empowering piece of work. As my colleague Professor Byrne mentioned, we are funded by the Irish Research Council. In 2019, I developed a programme for TY students which is delivered in 50 schools nationwide, albeit 14 of them are in Cork, but there you go. I have a meeting tomorrow with a teacher in a school in Cork who wants to develop an age-appropriate version for first years. That kind of answers that question.
Regarding the appetite more broadly, several people spoke about the broader societal issue and the levels - I think Ms Skelly said - of where we need to meet people and the appetite among society for training and bystander intervention. To give a small glimpse, in terms of private industry, I deliver workshops to pharmaceutical companies, law firms, the Law Society, students, the Irish Medical Organisation, the likes of Apple and Pepsi, and State bodies like Uisce Éireann. I spent eight months with the Defence Forces, reaching 3,000 personnel in that time. There were compulsory workshops for VHI and 100 members of the Oireachtas training and development unit have signed up for training, as well as a range of others, such as Cork GAA, etc.
Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Professor Crowley for answering the question. UCC cannot have all the time. Does the Senator have another question to ask?
Laura Harmon (Labour)
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I thank Professor Crowley for all that. I commend her again on all the work she has done, and it is great to see that it is expanding.
I want to put a question to AMLÉ. It was mentioned in the opening statement that it is very important that the student voice is not just a tick-the-box or afterthought. Does AMLÉ feel students are being consulted properly in their institutions as part of these procedures and policies? Is there anything the witnesses want to say on that?
Ms Emily Roberts-Smyth:
First, I want to return to the question regarding spiking. Naturally, AMLÉ will be supporting that legislation coming forward and ensuring it crosses the line, because these forms of training do not matter if this form of legislation does not get support. They have to go hand-in-hand. When you look at training programmes and legislation, you have to look at it as a pyramid. All the forms of violence where you can physically see it are at the top of the pyramid. We must also address the foundations at the bottom, which is where spiking legislation would come in handy.
A valid question was also asked around what age this training should start. I believe it is in primary education because when we look at menstruation, misogyny and the language used, if we do not start addressing this early on, is it too late by the time people have formed their ideologies? University is the time when people come to explore their own political beliefs, and this is the perfect time to tap in again, but this education has to happen a lot earlier.
I believe that many institutions, political parties and wider organisations need to do a lot more consultation with students. I have heard many examples today of great practice, but a standardisation of education and training needs to take place. It is fantastic that one student might have access to great reporting in an institution, but if a different form of reporting is taking place elsewhere and we have students coming together at a national point who hear of different practices taking place, they will ask why they did not receive that level of training or reporting. It is great that we are at the point of moving away from working in silos, but as we move to that more collaborative approach, students have to be the core stakeholder in all forms of engagement and creating these best practices.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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I thank everyone for coming in. We have had so many comprehensive discussions around this. As Senator Tully said earlier, each one seems to be different. Every time we have these meetings, all I can see is everyone in the room nodding or saying "Yes", so it looks as though everybody wants to collaborate.
On Senator Harmon's question of when this starts, kids are now seeing what they expect from sex and sexuality through social media and online platforms when they are very young. I have heard some girls saying they have to be submissive because that is what they are being told, which comes to the story where they do not even realise they are being raped in these situations. Maybe late primary school, where some kids are going through puberty, is the time to start teaching them. If you look at people who were abused when they were young and who come forward when they are older, they always say they did not understand what was happening to them. If we give them that understanding, this would be a very powerful tool for them to say, "This is not normal. This is not right."
With regard to the rape crisis centre in the mid-west, I am from the mid-west and it is absolutely shocking that there is nothing there. To think that it comes down to funding is even worse. It is disgusting that those who are reporting have to go and travel on a bus. It needs to be looked at.
To think that comes down to funding is even worse. It is absolutely disgusting that people have to travel on a bus to report. That needs to be looked at. Those who have gone through sexual assault or rape are ten times more likely to think of suicide. We are talking about people’s lives here. It is not just an incident. It is an incident they carry with them for the rest of their lives, and it can also affect the rest of their family.
We are in a loop at the minute. The people who do not want to report have no trust in the system or the services because the services are not there. If we build the services, however, they will come. Let us put the services in place first and then if the figures are not matching up to what the funding is, we can look at the funding end of things. We have to put the services in place. Do any of the witnesses wish to comment on that?
Professor Patricia Mannix McNamara:
I agree with the Deputy. I feel passionately about this as well. It is a massive gap. There is that piece about being ready to name what has happened to you, and having to do that to a garda before you can access forensic medical treatment is an outrage. I strongly feel that we need to do something about that now. I am on the same page as the Deputy in that regard.
With regard to when we would start this work, which is an important question, there is an architecture within the curriculum in schools to be able to do this work. The relationship and sexuality education programme allows for us to do this kind of work. Previously, I was a teacher and worked a lot on the research area around social, personal and health education, SPHE, and RSE. I am a keen advocate for the importance of those subjects. The issue is not only about putting that work into the curriculum, but also building the confidence and competence of teachers to be able to have those conversations and do that work. That requires investment. It is a no-brainer that we should be doing this.
There is a rise of misogyny online. Our young men are learning what it is to be male through Andrew Tate and company. They are picking this up. This can be seen in the context of pornography and strangulation where these things are considered to be sexual activity now. There is no counter-conversation for our young girls or women in that space.
It is incumbent on us to start this early. I agree with the Deputy in respect of the timing of this in schooling, but there also must be a carefully orchestrated development of the curriculum and confidence and competence-building of our teachers and practitioners in order to be able to facilitate this work with our young people. In that context, the work that we do – this is the dream – would be seen as a continuum. We would see it follow through into post-primary and become a consistent, as the Deputy said, delivery of education across all HEIs. The education of young people as they are in our system would be almost like a spiral. That is the high bar.
Ms Elaine Mears:
The Deputy’s question cuts right to the core of harmful cultural attitudes and behaviours. We should never even get to the conversation of sexual violence. I worked in rape crisis services for 13 years compiling data from rape crisis victims and survivors who attended rape crisis centres around Ireland, including Rape Crisis Midwest. What we saw in that data is that the sooner there is an intervention in a child’s life, and the sooner we can stop that violence and direct them towards a support service, the better the outcomes for that child within their whole life cycle. That data is all there. The younger we intervene, the better it is for the individual.
There are some brilliant programmes available. For example, Barnardos has an empathy programme. That is the kind of stuff we should be looking at. It goes back to that ecological model and looking at what is suitable for the person at the different life stages. We are not going to be coming with sexual violence training for primary school children aged four or five, but we can look at something else. We should never need to get to that conversation.
Professor Lorraine Leeson:
I will add one other comment. It is important, in all of the work we are doing right across the life cycle, that we ensure an intersectional lens applied. In my other life, I work with deaf communities and sign language users. We know from the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, that deaf and disabled people are twice as likely to be targeted as victims of abuse. We also know from Speak Out data and other data that people from minoritised communities, such as ethnic minorities or those from the LGBT+ community, have a higher risk of being targeted for abuse. We must, from end to end, ensure we are taking that intersectional approach.
Ms Rachel Skelly:
When we are looking at the education system, it is important that we utilise our position in higher education to close that loop. We have engaged hugely with our school of education over the last few years to ensure that we are also providing training to our teacher training programmes in order that they have the skills and capacity to deliver the required RSE at both primary and secondary level. It is important to recognise that closed-loop system and how we can support in that regard.
Professor Patricia Mannix McNamara:
I lend my voice to what Professor Leeson said. The most recent report for action 12, which is the Heard, Seen and Safe report of experiences of people who have made disclosures around sexual violence, shows that minoritised groups are significantly at risk. There are a range of complexities in relation to the help-seeking that goes along with the minoritised status. This is an area we need to pay close attention to in terms of intersectionality.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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It was stated that this should not be down to the institutions alone and that an holistic approach is needed. I agree with that assessment. Sin é.
Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Are there any other questions from committee members?
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I am happy to allow Deputy Cummins to contribute. In fairness, she has been present for the entirety of the meeting. Is that okay with the Chair?
Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, if it is okay with members.
Máire Devine (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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That is very generous of Deputy Connolly.
Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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He is our resident gentleman.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I thank all the witnesses. This discussion has been both heartbreaking and insightful. Ultimately, it is shocking that we have sexual assault treatment units, SATUs, in universities. If we are not shocked by it, we should be. Universities and third level institutions should be safe places. We should not need these units, but we do.
My questions centre around the level of consent training provided. The witnesses have said that consent training is available. In some places, it is compulsory. It is online in some places and in-person in others. From speaking to people who have gone into first year in some of the institutions, my understanding is that they have not been told about the consent training. They are not doing it. It is not good enough to tick a box. I can tick a box and say, “Grand”, or whatever else. This training needs to be provided face to face, as Professor Crowley described. People must look the person in the eye and say, “It is not all right to rape someone.”, as well as learn about all the different things in this regard. I am not trained in delivering that particular training, but I delivered sexual health training for young people for a long time when I was working in a school completion programme and as a youth worker. Youth workers are doing their lion’s share of work with regard to educating young people about sexual health, relationships and consent.
RSE is not delivered in secondary schools across the board. I encourage the universities that have teacher education programmes to try their best in this regard, both for initial teacher training education and CPD training for teachers who have been qualified for years. It is important. It is not a comfortable thing to talk about, but it is even more uncomfortable to talk about when things are desperately wrong and a person has been assaulted. Having conversations about what constitutes a normal relationship and sexual relationship is important. Not every child has those conversations at home or a school, nor does every young person attend a youth service. Therefore, when it comes to third level, that gap must be closed. Sometimes, at that stage, third level institutions will be the first to provide that education to a person.
My understanding is that consent training at Trinity College Dublin is online. Please make that in-person training. It makes it more real. Part of the difficulty with this is the fact many young people spend a lot of time online. Relationships are online. They see these fake relationships in the pornography industry. Face-to-face training is so important.
With regard to the training to prevent assault, I understand the funding and resources are not available. Until we get there, however, we are chasing the wrong thing all the time. We are sorting out a problem that has already happened. Prevention is better than the cure. I am interested to hear whether there is a possibility to move to face-to-face training. Where it is face to face already, that is fantastic. AMLÉ’s input is important in this regard because it represents people in all the different institutions. I am interested to hear its witnesses’ input in this regard.
Professor Louise Crowley:
Those are important questions. I will address the few issues the Deputy raised. First, the in-person workshop is the absolute gold standard.
We did it for two years on a pilot basis and reached 600 students but to reach 25,000 students, however many postgraduate students and all our staff is simply not feasible. The bystander team at UCD is two people but we probably do need to get to that figure. We then made it a blended learning program. They have to complete five online modules. It is very interactive. They give responses and views and then the screen changes to other people's responses. Trying to get that peer learning embedded online can be done. It is not as effective, but they do hear other voices.
When I deliver in person, for example in the sports workshops, they are three or four hours in person and the magic happens when they talk to each other about what is okay, what is not okay, and how they would support each other. So, the next time they are in a situation and are together socially, for example, they discuss this issue in the abstract and they have said, just like in the workshop, "I said X and Y happened". I agree that the in-person aspect and the peer learning it brings is really important.
The Deputy also said not everybody goes to school and this is really critical. As educators, we are in a very unique position. We can reach 25,000 students in UCC if we want to and we are funded to do it. Two or three years ago, the bystander team were funded by the Department of Communications, Culture and Sport and we developed a programme called All Right All Night. It is a programme for young people aged 16 to 24 to keep safe in the night-time economy. It is built on the bystander programme, but it positions it on young people going out enjoying the arts, hence the link with the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport. We deliver it, we do training the trainer with teachers, youth clubs and sports volunteers. Actually, the funding has been paused by the Department. We are also conscious of the fact that we will not reach everybody in that instance, so we have a one hour of free online training on our All Right All Night website embedded in UCC for all 18- to 24-year-olds. It is set at 18 because of the consent issue. We are doing our best to reach people wherever they are, conscious that they may not be in school. This is a programme they can finish and they can get a certificate for. It does address key issues for them. There is a lot being done and we have to accept that sometimes it is better to reach them online than not reach them at all, even though it is not ideal.
Ms Maria Healy:
I will echo what Professor Crowley said. It is definitely easier doing the in-person training with smaller groups because the information that comes from that peer-to-peer element is just phenomenal. It is phenomenal to witness. In terms of delivering in person, University of Limerick are in a number of orientation programs around delivering consent training to first-year undergrads. There is registered attendance and it is mandatory for them to attend. If they do not attend that training, then we do follow up with direct emails asking them to attend follow-up sessions. Do we reach 100% of our first-year undergrads? No, we do not. However, like that previous example, we offer the active consent online training. We offer different training in person throughout the academic year and outside of that training being mandatory, you could walk into a room and have nobody sitting in that room.
We also have nearly 20 consent student ambassadors who are recently trained in facilitation of the active consent workshops, and they will go out and promote the active consent workshop, promote consent culture and also do the facilitation of those workshops in an effort to bring students to the consent training. However, as was said, the conversations are uncomfortable and they are looking at that from the space they are in. When it is a space of sexual violence and harassment, those conversations are even more uncomfortable, and the gap is not being bridged in terms of them needing to learn this and needing to be educated in this space so that we are preventing harm further down the line. In terms of sexual violence and harassment, and not just in higher education as it is a societal problem, a lot of the time it is very easy to say "that does not apply to me, that is not going to reach me, that is not a problem I need to be concerned about", but if it affects one person, it is a problem that we all need to be concerned about.
Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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We will go to Ms Skelly for the final comment on that.
Ms Rachel Skelly:
I wholeheartedly agree that face-to-face training has a far greater engagement. This year we recruited a panel of student ambassadors, so we are bringing back our face-to-face training and we are bringing it back through peer-led education. We are also able to pay our student ambassadors which is hugely important to ensure that they have a living wage to go alongside this. Within that, that is also bringing it beyond freshers' week and bringing it throughout the academic year to ensure that it is not a tick-box exercise because they went to the orientation talk. That is absolutely a key priority for us. I would love to be able to reach all 22,000 students and all 4,500 staff but, again, it comes down to capacity. We are absolutely stuck in responding to the aftermath at the moment.
Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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We are going to run out of time. We will come to Ms Skelly again. We are going to move to Deputy Devine.
Máire Devine (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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I am a kind of blow-in to this committee. I am Sinn Féin spokesperson on gender and domestic violence. So, this is obviously of great interest to me. I thank the witnesses. It is just an overwhelming, difficult and growing topic or issue or problem or horror that is occurring in our society and worldwide. It is being fed by who we know to be the culprits. We can say them out loud. The Tates, who will hopefully get the justice they deserve soon, the Trumps, the Putins, the fascists and the kind of oligarchs in the world that we are living in today.
I often think about what we are doing or what society is doing so that one in five boys and men believe that women have reached the pinnacle of what equal means and that we have gone too far in equality. I often wonder how we are going to address them. In every committee or community event I go to concerned with this subject, it is always women leading. It is great to see men here. It is always women leading it and we are not the problem. We need to include men. I am going to do a celebration for International Men's Day here in the Ceann Comhairle's private Members dining room. She has agreed to it. We go on and plough on in celebrating women and the equality still to be attained, but we need to address the elephant in the room, which is the question where are the men and our boys? I believe International Men's Day this year coincides with the 16 days of purple activism against violence against women and the elimination of it. I wonder whether the witnesses could do something around that in the universities and in higher education, and could even look at a project where, once they have conveyed to the young men and women that are there to learn correct ways of consent and attitudes, maybe get them to feed that out to the secondary schools.
Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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We are actually going to run out of time.
Máire Devine (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Sorry. Do you want me to hurry up and ask a question?
Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Ask a question.
Máire Devine (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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I am on the all-party domestic violence group led and chaired by Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. Would the witnesses be interested in making a presentation to them? The last presentation had something really scary about there being 85 million pornographic sites in the world, and we do not have a handle on them. It would be good if witnesses could even link in with them. Does UCD's duty of respect and the right of dignity at work policy include the deepfake imagery? When are An Garda Síochána involved and how are they involved at that stage? Would witnesses consider instances of spiking, when chemicals are added to someone's food or drink, to fall under these policies? If not, it might need a review as well. The statement indicates a dedicated sexual misconduct policy. How does this differ from the previous policy? I know we are running out of time, so I will be quiet now.
Ms Rachel Skelly:
I will address the deepfakes and the spiking piece. It is really important. Our policies do not explicitly name deepfakes. This is due to the fact that technological advances are far faster than policy review. We have established an image-based sexual abuse, IBSA, working group which is looking to review and understand how we can best future-proof our policies and procedures for these technological advances.
Deepfakes would be included within that. It is also important when we talk about spiking to recognise that spiking through alcohol - that is, more alcohol than the person is aware of - is another very common form of spiking.
Ms Elaine Mears:
Gender-based violence, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality in a 2019 report, costs Ireland €4 billion per year. Some 99% of that is going on just dealing with the fallout and aftermath of sexual violence. A tiny proportion - 1%, if even - is going on prevention. That needs to be targeted.
On the online piece, AI and all of that technology piece, we in Ireland have handed over control of technology to external platforms. We have handed control of regulation to big tech. We need regulation and legislation on that. We have the opportunity to be world leaders. Most of the big tech companies are here. They are not far from this building. We can lead on that.
At the Speak Out national office, Dublin Rape Crisis Centre speaks at our advisory committee. We work closely with our community partners in that regard.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I have a couple of quick questions for all the institutions. UL advises that it brings its annual report to the governing authority. I was surprised to see the number of committees operating at UL. It is good that it is brought to every committee, but my goodness, there is some duplication of administration there from what I can see. How extensive would the debate be? I assume the other institutions are doing the same. How extensive would the discussion be?
Mr. Michael Hanrahan:
At UCC, the governing authority gets an annual report. It aligns with the Higher Education Authority reporting requirements. Our people and culture committee, a subcommittee of the governing authority in the university leadership team, also gets quarterly reports on the topics. There is extensive discussion at those committees.
Professor Patricia Mannix McNamara:
We are the same. At one level, it may feel like duplication. I have been in the role for almost a year and when I first saw this, I thought, "Is this really the case?". Now that I have gone through this process, I can see that it creates saturation, which is vital. I am now on the other side of the argument. I do not love constantly having to report.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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It is important that they are all made aware but I am taken aback that there are that many committees in the management of the university.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The saturation is positive.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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It is a definitely a side topic. However, it strikes me as a lot.
Professor Patricia Mannix McNamara:
That is for a different day. Each committee has different functions. It allows us access in our office to all the different functions of the university to do that. The conversation is respectful. It is given quite a bit of time. There are a lot of questions. It is an area of keen interest to the university and is an important thing to bolster our work in the human rights and equality, diversity and inclusion office. In answer to the question, there is a keen interest. I was recently asked to join the student experience and access committee to make sure it stays on the agenda. We work a lot with students on that committee. We need to ensure their voices are heard directly in that space. It is something the university takes seriously.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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It is important that Ms Mears is here. We would obviously see Speak Out as the default option for a victim. All the institutions that have visited have said it is their port of call. Ms Mears has reinforced the point. Some 12% of those who go to Speak Out subsequently make a formal complaint to the institution. That is concerning. I am guessing that there is nobody who goes to the institution without going to Speak Out.
Ms Elaine Mears:
Not in all cases. It is 12% of students and 24% of staff. I looked at a three-year data analysis before coming to the meeting. Speak Out is one of a number of options for people. Looking at this through a trauma-informed lens, and Speak Out was created through that lens because it was created by the network of counsellors in higher education, we have to provide choices to victims and survivors. The majority of people are never going to make a formal report. That is a reality. We see that in the criminal justice system and we are seeing it within the institution. However, the international research has shown that where an anonymous reporting tool exists, it increases levels of disclosure. It also increases levels of formal reporting and the numbers of people accessing support. That is what we are trying to do with Speak Out. It is a stepping stone. Some people might come to Speak Out, make the report and think that they will never make a formal report and will not engage with that part of the university. However, depending on what they report to the tool, they are syphoned or signposted to specific support services for their needs. For instance, if someone discloses a form of sexual violence, they will be signposted to their local Rape Crisis Centre, the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre 24-hour national helpline and their own institution's formal and informal reporting structures. It is about helping people to find the language and words to speak about their experience and, we hope, giving them that gentle bridge to formal reporting.
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Is there any indication of the proportion of those who are syphoned to support services who take it up?
Ms Elaine Mears:
We do not collect data on that. Approximately 65% of people who use Speak Out say that they did go on to seek support. The majority of people seeking support do so from friends and family and the counselling service. We know this from Central Statistics Office, CSO, data. Some 47% of people who were subjected to sexual violence went on to seek support or to disclose to another person. We see the importance of the HEI counselling service within that.
What we also see, and this is critical, is that it is imperative that there is a cross-societal understanding of gender-based violence, how to receive a disclosure, how to listen and believe, and how to make a referral to an appropriate support organisation.
Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I am hesitant to stop, but Deputy Ó Súilleabháin has been waiting to get in.
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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Social media is obviously having a hugely negative effect in this area. I am wondering about changes in demographics in the third level institutions in recent years. Ireland's third level institutions are hugely multicultural, more so than was the case five years ago. Have any data been gathered about the changes in demographics of victims or perpetrators? There are obviously going to be cultural differences in different societies. Does that have any impact?
Ms Elaine Mears:
We see that people with marginalised identities disclose higher levels of sexual violence and all forms of abuse to Speak Out. We see in other data, including in the CSO prevalence study on sexual violence, that for people with disabilities, there are higher forms of sexual violence. People who are not Irish and are not white are disclosing higher levels of sexual violence.
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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That is in terms of the victims. What about the perpetrators? People may be coming from societies that may have a different attitude to consent. Has this transferred in any way to third level? If you have a transfer of a large number of students or staff from a particular area, would those attitudes transfer? Has any data been collected about the perpetrators?
John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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It is men.
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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Has there been any anecdotal evidence of anything or-----
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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Obviously different societies have different attitudes to sexual-related things, regardless of gender. There are obviously societal factors.
Ms Maria Healy:
In April last year, we held an open conversation meeting with members of the student community within UL. One of things that came out of that was a preference for all-female training and that was due to cultural backgrounds. Some of the members who came to those groups did not feel comfortable discussing these types of topics in front of their male counterparts. That is the only piece in the context of what the Deputy is speaking out that has been prevalent in UL that I know of.
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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That is useful. I thank the witnesses.
Mr. Daniel Walsh:
I want to touch on a point that Ms Roberts-Smyth raised in her opening submission regarding the experience of students in particularly precarious accommodation. We work quite closely with the Irish Council for International Students. Certainly, international students are subjected to a much higher rate of abuse, frequently sexual abuse, or propositioning when in those more precarious forms of accommodation. Earlier this year we welcomed legislation which proposes to make illegal any advertising of sex for rent or such arrangements. This is something which has disproportionately impacted international students as they are coming in so we were glad to see this legislation brought forward. As Ms Roberts-Smyth noted, a whole-of-government approach is needed to tackle it from the ground up.
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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This is a very good point. The survey showed that 5% of international female students had been propositioned in terms of sex for rent so this is quite useful.
Laura Harmon (Labour)
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Is there anything else AMLÉ wants to say about the wider context in Ireland of what needs to be tackled by the Government to ensure students are safer in terms of sexual violence, harassment and assault?
Ms Emily Roberts-Smyth:
There has to be an island-wide approach. This cannot be tackled twofold. We have to see more standardisation and more legislative support. AMLÉ will spearhead a charter that is signed in Stormont, in Leinster House and in institutions because we need to tackle this collectively. It is great to see we are moving away from silos but the Government needs to support this collaborative approach.
Laura Harmon (Labour)
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In relation to the institutions that are here, funding is one request, as are a joined-up approach and a national panel. Are there any other key requests?
Professor Stephen Byrne:
Our requests include working with Cuan and having more targeted research and a more collaborative approach across the institutions whereby we can unite on a common project. We will launch a spiking project with Cork Rape Crisis Centre in the coming months. We should have initiatives such as this on a national basis. The Speak Out tool is unique but very informative with regard to the institutions collaborating together. This is what I would call for.
Professor Lorraine Leeson:
The key points are the shared investigation unit, the resources around prevention initiatives, and the great collaboration with other organisations, including working with MOVE Ireland to look at prevention. There is also legislation and regulation, particularly with regard to technology. I will finish by saying again the amount of collaboration and engagement across the institutions in higher education and with NGOs working in this area cannot be underestimated. We work incredibly well together and I hope the committee sees how engaged we are on this topic. Anything we can do together to do better we will do.
Professor Patricia Mannix McNamara:
It is important to say this session today has been vital, as is the committee's support for broadening the discourse from survivor focused to perpetrator also. We need support to broaden this discourse. We need to understand why this is happening among men and how to connect with men in order to have a message that invites them into the dialogue to be able to become allies. There is still a difficulty with them being allies. Earlier we spoke about RSE. We know the gendered nature of the teaching of RSE is problematic because it is mostly women who teach the subject in schools. We have already embedded gendered roles in how we do this work and we need the committee's support to widen the discourse and higher expectations of men.
Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all of the witnesses. There are many more questions we could discuss. I am not sure whether I was good Chair or a bad Chair today because I did not want to interrupt any of the answers because they were all so incredibly important. I thank AMLÉ, Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork and the University of Limerick for their evidence and input today. It is very clear that substantial work is going on in higher education regarding consent education, the bystander intervention programme, reporting routes and specialist supports. It is also very clear that we have a huge challenge in front of us. Having the policy is only a starting point and this has been very well articulated today. Students, staff and the entire education community must understand their options. They must feel safe seeking help and they must receive timely support and fair procedures when they seek that support.
As the mother of four young boys who will, some day, in the blink of an eye, be four young men I look to them and their peers, both boys and girls. It is correct to say it is with the youngest of our communities and our families where we begin to eradicate the scourge and prevalence of sexual violence. It is profoundly pressurising as a mother to think of this but it is incumbent on all of us in society. It is all our responsibility.
This meeting has been profoundly informative. It is worrying but also gives me great confidence in who is dealing with and looking after our student bodies and education communities in preventing, supporting and changing and I thank all of the witnesses for this. We could have another ten committee meetings and we would not have highlighted satisfactorily all of the good work or all of the problems. On this note, if the witnesses want to clarify or add to something which came up today, because a lot has come up, our report will take into consideration how we implement and support institutions and how we are funding them, which is very important. We know there is lot of work to be done so if there is something the witnesses think of as they are leaving here today I ask them to send it in because we want our report and our recommendations to be clear and guided by the witnesses. This is the most important thing. I thank the witnesses very much for their engagement today. It has been very fulfilling, interesting and informative. We will suspend briefly to allow our witnesses to depart before moving into a very brief private session. Is that agreed? Agreed.
Cuireadh an suí ar fionraí ar 2.28 p.m. agus cuireadh tús leis arís i seisiúin príobháideach ar 2.30 p.m.
Sitting suspended at 2.28 p.m. and resumed in private session at 2.30 p.m.
Cuireadh an comhchoiste ar athló ar 2.46 p.m. go dtí 12.30 p.m., Dé Céadaoin, an 7 Deireadh Fómhair 2026.
The joint committee adjourned at 2.46 p.m. until 12.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 7 October 2026.