Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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74. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on how the Speak Out tool for reporting violence and harassment is working since its launch; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [58553/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Speak Out tool, launched last month, is an online anonymous reporting tool for incidents of Bullying, Harassment, Discrimination, Assault, Sexual Harassment, and Sexual Assault, and is being led by the Psychological Counsellors in Higher Education Ireland group, with funding provided by my Department.

Speak Out allows staff and students to report harassment across all equality grounds, including sexual misconduct and racial discrimination.

The platform is currently available in the higher education sector and is being rolled out across 18 higher education institutions to support staff, students and visitors to speak out against this type of misconduct. The national roll-out of the Speak Out tool is aligned with an ethos of cross institutional collaboration in response to misconduct within higher education institutions.

The tool enables institutions to track incidents across campuses. Institutions are encouraged to use the data to inform their review of policies and procedures and to develop targeted approaches. This includes both tackling misconduct and also creating formal reporting routes for affected staff and students.

As part of the Framework for Consent, institutions must report incidents of Bullying, Harassment, Sexual Harassment, and Sexual Assault to the Higher Education Authority, and this tool will allow them to report in a timely and standardised fashion.

The participating higher education institutions will report next year on statistics gathered through this tool. An assessment of its impact and usage will be carried out at the end of the current academic year.

What is clear already is that by encouraging people to “speak out” and assuring them that the supports are there, should they wish to avail of them, this important tool helps our ongoing work in educating students and staff about issues of consent. It will also make an important contribution to our ultimate goal of ending bullying, harassment and sexual harassment on our campuses.