Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-25
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Ruth Coppinger (PBP), Dublin West

To be clear, I highlighted a particular case but this is not about one case, as shown by the statistics I gave, the survey that was done in the north east and The Journal Investigates findings. This has been going on for more than a year. It is time for the Minister for Health to intervene. An Garda Síochána, the health service and the Army should not be safe havens for perpetrators. Unfortunately, the policies that are designed to deal with complaints of sexual harassment and violence are failing utterly to do so. Neither internal procedures nor the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, are really holding perpetrators to account. In fact, the complainants, who often are women, are the people who end up suffering in their career, in their education, as we saw with the case in UCD, or in terms of their health. In the Private Members' debate earlier, I referred to a case where a garda made a complaint of sexual harassment against a colleague. The sergeant is working away and she is off sick.
We need intervention in relation to sexual harassment. It should be a criminal offence, not just something that is dealt with through the Employment Appeals Tribunal. We need action now.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:47+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-25