Vintners and students call for greater effort to increase safety
Both vintners and a students union say more can be done to increase safety after the revelation that three students had been raped in Cork since the start of the academic year.
Mary Crilly, head of the Sexual Violence Centre in the city, had told Cork City Joint Policing Committee of the attacks and said none had been reported to gardaí.
Ger Kiely, owner of the Old Oak where the local ‘Ask for Angela’ campaign was launched earlier this year, said more could be done.
He said his premises had upgraded CCTV and trained staff, and that in some cases, if staff “had a doubt” about a possible situation, they would take photographs on their phone as a precaution or deterrent.
“If you have worries or concerns it is not that we are ignoring them,” he said, adding that if someone was even passing his venue with a concern they should feel free to raise concerns with staff.
It is not known which colleges the students are attending.
A spokesperson for Cork Institute of Technology said it understood none of its students were involved but that it had been in touch with Ms Crilly to say it was happy to become involved in any initiatives.
Kelly Coyle, UCC Students Union deputy president, said the organisation was looking at greater co-operation with venue owners.
“We were all shocked and really devastated and concerned for the students involved,” she said.
A number of initiatives have already taken place on campus, including around Fresher’s Week, but she said: “We need to up our campaign around it and get better engagement.”
UCC law lecturer Catherine O’Sullivan tweeted “My heart breaks for these students”, and said the reports underscored the importance of initiatives such as consent workshops and the Bystander programme adapted for UCC by senior law lecturer at the college, Louise Crowley.
My heart breaks for these students. Underscores the impi of initiatives such as #ConsentWorkshops by @UCCFemSoc running this week & the #Bystander programme adapted for @UCC by @LouiseCrowley2/ https://t.co/irmnNtXlfd
— Dr Catherine O'Sullivan (@cathosx) September 25, 2018
Launched in January 2017, it encourages an understanding of the dangers of abusive behaviour and the capacity of a bystander to intervene.
Noeline Blackwell, CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, said its 24-hour helpline had also received a number of reports understood to be from people who come to the Dublin area for college and who reported sexual assaults.
She said while it is “never, ever the fault of the person who is raped or assaulted”, some cases also highlighted how some people attending third level for the first time can be “unequipped” for some aspects of life as a student.
“People coming out of secondary school do not have the communication skills to explain when they are comfortable with sexual activity and when they are not,” she said.
Just this week, the Oireachtas published a new report written by Ann Nolan, senior parliamentary researcher (social science) entitled ‘School-based relationships and sexuality education (RSE): lessons for policy and practice’, which found that there is “clear evidence that school-based sex education programmes can improve sexual health outcomes”.
Last April the Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton announced a review of the RSE curriculum.
