Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is a great initiative and it is fantastic to see a national roll-out of this tool. That is certainly aligned with the ethos of cross-institutional collaboration in response to misconduct in the higher education institutions. This aspect is very welcome. Depending on the impact of the initiative, and its success in combating this behaviour, I hope that we will see the number of institutions using the tool grow beyond the current total of 18 that have signed up so far during this roll-out. I am conscious that the development of the tool was initially funded by the then Department of Education and Skills in late 2019 and early 2020 to the tune of €80,000. That development was supplemented with funding from the HEA in 2020 to the amount of €96,000. Prevention is also of paramount importance, and I note that additional funding of €400,000 has been allocated to several initiatives around the subject of consent. I would appreciate any further information that the Minister might be able to provide regarding this initiative.

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