Minister targets bullying in arts

SENIOR members of the Irish arts and cultural community will be invited to participate in workshops and training courses with a focus on ‘bullying, abuse of power and sexual harassment in the workplace’, the Arts Minister has announced.

As part of her commitment to tackling ‘sexual harassment and abuse of power in the workplace in the arts and culture sector’, Heather Humphreys has unveiled plans for a ‘suite of measures’ including specific initiatives in conjunction with the Arts Council.

This comes in the wake of a number of allegations of bullying and sexual harassment being made against former Gate Theatre artistic director Michael Colgan. Minister Humphreys has said that she has invited a group of eight leaders from Irish theatre organisations to meet with her and the Arts Council this week to ‘discuss ways’ in which they ‘can support the sector in creating a safe culture and environment for those working in the industry’.

And she has confirmed that she has also ‘been engaging with the Chair of the Abbey Theatre’, and that she plans to collaborate with them to ‘facilitate an industry-wide consultation exercise that will be held in partnership with the Arts Council’.

The minister also proposes to take a number of actions in relation to bodies which report directly to her department, and these include ‘our national cultural institutions and state agencies’.

The initiative will also involve writing to the bodies to ‘seek assurances’ of their compliance with their obligations under employment law. Ms Humphreys said the intention in this was ‘to shine a light on these obligations’.

The planned workshops will have a ‘particular focus on the role of the board’, its relationship with the executive and their legal responsibility with emphasis on issues such as bullying and sexual harassment, she said.