Irish women discuss sexual harassment in wake of Weinstein allegations
Terry Prone spoke on the Late Late Show about her own experiences of Harvey Weinstein-like behaviour among men in the Irish media, .
The scandal was raised as part of a panel discussion with Prone, Fidelma Healy-Eames, and Kitty Holland.
"There has never been a silence among women. I can remember at 16 going and doing work in the entertainment business and I was immediately taken aside by women, older women, who said don't get into the lift with 'Head-the-ball'.
"They said he will take you down to the basement and he will put one finger on the button so that the lift can't move and his hand will go up your skirt."
She mentioned, in particular, one broadcaster who, while a woman was speaking on the radio, would sit beside her and remove all of his clothing below the waist.
"There was this guy who, if you were doing an interview live on the air or if you were more likely reading a short story or something like that, he would come in and sit down beside you and he would remove all of his clothing below the waist."
Prone warned that the covering up of this kind of behaviour leads to it becoming normalised.
"The odd thing was it became a kind of idiosyncrasy, it was kind of like local colour, that's what he does," she said.
"It's grotesque and if it becomes acceptable as 'he's a gas man', well that normalises the abnormal," added Ryan Tubridy.
Prone said that some words excusing the behaviour are "absolute nonsense".
"This woman was suggesting that he was a dinosaur. This is not 'dinosaur', this is 'scumbag'. It's absolute nonsense."
