Women’s caucus to look into bullying in the Dáil

Anne Rabbitte, Fiona O'Loughlin, Micheál Martin, and Lorraine Clifford-Lee pictured in 2018. File Picture: Conor McCabe Photography.

The incoming chair of the Women's Parliamentary Caucus says she was intimidated and bullied by a member of her own party in the last Dáil.

The cross-party women's forum wants Dáil and Seanad statements on all the recent Leinster House harassment allegations which have been exposed in recent months.

Fianna Fáil senator Fiona O'Loughlin has said the culture within Leinster House needs to change and said the caucus will be priorotising the completion of another survey of staff as part of its work.

A 2019 Oireachtas survey found that inappropriate behaviour, in particular bullying, does occur in the parliamentary workplace, with 15% of people who responded stating that they have experienced bullying.

A more recent survey carried out by the Irish Examiner revealed that at least 12 of the Dáil's 34 current serving female TDs have been sexually harassed at some point in their lives.

Speaking of her own experience, Ms O'Loughlin said: "It's easier probably to intimidate a woman, particularly if you know she's not going to play the victim, and I was never somebody who was going to play the victim.

As a woman you're still trying to prove yourself in a man's world, to a certain extent, and because you feel that you don't want to be seen as a complainer you don't want to be seen as a whinger.

She hopes the work of the women's caucus, including surveys of workplace harassment will "change the culture" both inside and outside Leinster House.

Ms O'Loughlin said there had been statements about a number of other issues, including the golf-gate controversy which happened outside of Leinster House, however, bullying and harassment which has been reported within the confines of the campus has yet to be discussed in the Chamber.

"One of the things that we agreed as a women's caucus, and it's something I will be taking forward now as chair is that we will have statements in the Seanad and Dáil about that, because it can't be ignored."

She said a Dáil discussion might make "people think about their own behaviour" adding that some of the details both reported in the media and through the survey have been "shocking"

Dignity and respect in the workplace is just so hugely important and the fact that it's mainly women that have been impacted, now I have to acknowledge that in cases that we have heard it's women who have inflicted bullying as well. So, we know we have to own that and acknowledge that completely.

Ms O'Loughlin said she had been targeted during her time as a TD in the last Dáil by a party colleague who was "quite bullying and and very, very dismissive".

She said this included being told the wrong time for meetings or not being invited to events that were happening. She said the politician often ignored her and left her name out when acknowledging the work that had been carried out on projects that she was centrally involved in.

Ms O'Loughlin said she had considered making a formal complaint about the behaviour but decided against it, which she says she somewhat regrets.

"I put up with that for four years. To me it was pretty awful, it dents your confidence. I think it was because I was a woman," she said, adding that she had discussed it with male colleagues who had not received the same treatment.