Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Leader to facilitate a debate in the House after Easter on the best means of tackling sexual harassment issues, particularly sexual harassment in the workplace. I raise this because, as all Members will be aware having been emailed about it, a survey initiated by the women's caucus is being carried out to discover the extent to which harassment is an issue in the Houses of the Oireachtas workplace. It is the first time that such a survey has been carried out in the Oireachtas and it is very important that we get a wide range of participants and significant buy-in to the survey.

I also call for a debate on this issue because several initiatives have recently been taken on it. In another forum I welcomed the announcement last Friday by the Minister of State, Deputy Mitchell O'Connor, that she is putting €400,000 towards funding for supports to deal with sexual harassment in higher education institutions. This builds on work being done by the National Women's Council of Ireland, NWCI, which obtained significant funding from the EU to look comparatively at sexual harassment in academia across five EU member states.In March of this year it launched a very useful toolkit called #itstopsnow, which gives information and guidelines to third level institutions on how best to deal with sexual harassment, being mindful of the need for fair procedures in workplaces and of the fact that sexual harassment can take different guises in a workplace especially when that workplace compromises staff and students.

In Trinity College last night we were delighted to host a very eminent speaker, Dr. Celeste Kidd from the University of California, Berkeley, and one of Timemagazine's silence breakers and people of the year in 2017. She spoke out about sexual harassment on the campus at the University of Rochester - where she worked in 2017 - and as a result changed a good deal of practices at that university. Dr. Kidd has become a real leader in speaking out, especially for women in science and scientific research. I was proud to also speak at the meeting Dr. Kidd spoke at last night, which was hosted by Women in Research Ireland. We discussed different means, mechanisms and strategies that can be used in higher education to tackle sexual harassment. Clearly, this is an issue that goes beyond colleges. I ask the Leader if we could have a debate on this issue at some point after Easter.

I welcome that today we will debate the Thirty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution (Dissolution of Marriage) Bill 2016. I am aware we will have the chance to debate the Bill later this evening but I am sorry we will not debate more extensive constitutional amendments to Article 41. I would have liked to see Members debate a change in the waiting time in the lead up to a divorce and a debate on a change to the definition of "family" so that we no longer define family as that based on marriage only. I would also like to see us deleting the provisions relating to women and mothers that use such loaded and sexist language, and instead to see a gender neutral language used in the Constitution. I am sorry we will not have that more extensive reform before us this evening but I welcome the Bill we have.

I agree with previous speakers on the issue of the Israeli elections and on the need for parliaments around the world to speak out where we see abuses of power and abuses of human rights occurring. All of us have noted with alarm Prime Minister Netanyahu's comments about settlements, given that his Government already had such an appalling record of building settlements and the demolition and moving on of Palestinians, and given that this House has spoken so clearly in supporting Senator Black's Control of Economic Activities (Occupied Territories) Bill. The context and the speeches around the Israeli election really show even more clearly the need for that legislation to be adopted and embraced by the Government.