Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have been raising this issue with the Minister for 18 months through parliamentary questions in the Dáil, through the media and in committee. This information should be in her hands. The report her Department has published is a whitewash. The Minister has seen a letter detailing the bullying that is happening in the National Museum and yet it has been dismissed in the Department's report as having no legal standing. The Department has received a self-identified protected disclosure and yet it employed a firm of solicitors to fight that protected disclosure. A large number of people have been to the High Court and received settlements - State money. Despite this, the Minister claims she has no responsibility in the matter.

Millions of euro have been paid to consultants and for reports with regard to psychologists on this issue and yet nothing of significance is being done. Stacks of surveys detail the massive amount of complaints of bullying. This weekend even the former director of the museum came out and said he had witnessed uncontrolled misogyny in the museum when he was leaving. He is concerned that it is still there.

We know that a psychotherapist, who had been employed by the museum, blew the whistle and sent a letter to the Department in 2011 identifying exactly what had happened. This weekend the front page of a newspaper reported another brave woman's experience of what has happened in the museum. There is a forest of signposts clearly pointing the direction on the issue and yet the Department's report states that there is nothing to see here.

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