Consent classes given thumbs up from campaigners

Campaigners have given their support to the students union at Trinity College in Dublin, which is to offer sexual consent classes to new students.

The objective of the workshops is for students to learn about the issue in a positive way and to get people talking.

The classes are based on a model piloted by the Oxford University student unions in Britain and those involved have been trained by the likes of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.

CEO of the Men's Development Network, Alan O'Neill, has said it is hugely important to educate young men about issues surrounding sex and consent: “You will a sex drive, you will feel attraction to your peers, to young women, to older women and these are all things you have to contend with as a young man.

“And so young men we can’t leave them isolated with that lack of information with that sort of change happening in their bodies.

“We have to give them information and then we have to tell them through something like these consent campaign and this is how you deal with that.”