RCI calls for renewed commitment to ending sexual violence in higher education
25th June 2026: Rape Crisis Ireland (RCI) Executive Director, Dr Clíona Saidléar, appeared before the Joint Committee on Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science today to give evidence on sexual violence and harassment in higher education.
Dr Saidléar’s submission reflected on seven years of the Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment (ESVH) Framework – developed by RCI in 2018 and built around a whole-of-system approach to cultural change across Irish higher education institutions.
While progress has been made, particularly on first year training and awareness, she was candid with the Committee about what has not yet been achieved: genuine understanding of prevalence, meaningful responses to formal disclosures, and the partnership model between institutions and rape crisis centres that was central to the original vision. Realising that partnership model requires Government to resource the rape crisis and community sector to engage meaningfully with higher education institutions — because a truly survivor-centred response cannot be built without them.
The most urgent concern RCI raised is that ESVH is drifting toward a compliance exercise – boxes ticked, but real change stalled. Against the backdrop of rising online misogyny measurably affecting the young men in first year consent workshops, Dr Saidléar argued that Ireland cannot afford to let the framework’s ambition be diluted.
“We have always believed that sexual violence is not a natural phenomenon — it is designed in, and therefore it can be designed out,” she said. “ESVH is our laboratory. To protect that endeavour, we must guard against compliance as an endpoint and ensure whole-of-system structural engagement.”
The ask to the Committee is for continued political leadership, rigorous transparency through annual public reporting, and an unwavering commitment to the goal ESVH was always about: not managing sexual violence, but ending it.
Read RCI’s full written submission here.
