Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Harris, and thank Senator Lynn Ruane for bringing this to us today. It is such an important topic. It is also important that women can speak freely about their experiences, as Senator McGreehan has just demonstrated. I thank her for that.

This motion concerns bullying and sexual harassment at third level, which is incredible when we think about it. These are colleges and places we go to so minds can be opened and challenged and where we can have new experiences to explore and discover. It is such a special time in a person's life and it makes someone the type of person that he or she goes on to be. It is so important. Thinking back, I was fortunate to have an incredible experience as a student, but so many people have had other types of experience. I have heard, anecdotally, about people having these experiences and having to move elsewhere. It is shocking. When students and staff have such experiences, it leaves a major impact on their lives, careers and mental health. As a member of the Oireachtas committee dealing with mental health, I stand tall on measures to ensure it can be protected for people in colleges and universities.

I am sure the Minister supports the idea that it is unacceptable to have non-disclosure agreements as a method of silencing bullying cases.It is not acceptable to have NDAs to silence abuse on equality grounds or to silence anything to do with sexual harassment. It is also not acceptable, as Senator Ruane has mentioned, if people are moving on to different careers or institutions. That cannot be possible.

It is important that we have the initial forms of the survey Senator Ruane has conducted. Perhaps it would be useful to have a wider survey taking in wider samples across all of our universities, including our new technological universities. It is a precarious nature of employment in third level. As a previous researcher in the universities, I know that it is contract work. One could get six months, one year or two years of work. One could be working with a research team, and there are great research teams out there, but these are niche areas and it is a small world. If one is in a particular area of research it can be a small world and one's career is dependent on good recommendations and word of mouth and so it is difficult for some of those people to come forward with this type of experience. The Minister is probably conscious of that.

I want to point out some of the things I have seen in the last year that have been heartening to me. For example, a year ago we had no female provosts or presidents in the universities and now we have four coming forward. We have a female interim president of the University of Limerick, Professor Kerstin Mey; Dr. Linda Doyle in Trinity College Dublin; Professor Maggie Cusack in Munster Technological University; and Professor Eeva Leinonen in the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Change has to happen from the ground up, from our students and staff. We also have to have key people in positions of authority and decision makers who are aware and who are able to act. We need to bring more balance to our leadership within our university structures.

I was glad to be able to meet and see some of the research team in the National University of Ireland, Galway, on the active consent programme that is being rolled out. This is part of the behavioural change that we have to see and that has to happen. It is behavioural and it has to change. In the active consent initiative in the National University of Ireland, Galway, they work with both students and staff. There are information talks for staff, parents or community groups and consent workshops for third level colleges. They are using drama and different types of educational resources to reach people and target different groups. They are also looking at working with schools and youth groups on research and development.

The Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science recently rolled out a report on bullying at primary and post-primary level. It was shocking to me that there are seemingly more instances of bullying in primary school than in post-primary school. It shows that this behaviour and idea that one can somehow manipulate and abuse people has to be changed and that change has to happen at an early stage. I have just come from a meeting of that committee at which the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, indicated that measures will be rolled out to support anti-bullying and to tackle bullying within our primary and post-primary sectors. It is crucial that we tackle that from an early stage. The Minister has also just launched the "#UnmuteConsent" campaign. It is important that we communicate that, share it and work with our student unions to ensure that message is being rolled out and that people feel safe to come forward. I also know we have that number, 50808, for any students, staff or anyone who has a concern to be able to text someone and to speak in confidence. That is crucial. I look forward to the Minister's response and I know he will be supportive of Senator Ruane's measure.