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Sixty complaints of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment have been made by civil servants in Government departments over the last three years.
The Department of Social Protection received 31 complaints between 2019 and last year, the highest number of any department.
Thirteen were dealt with by the Department of Justice during the same period. This included three alleging bullying, one alleging harassment, two alleging bullying and harassment and two alleging sexual harassment in 2019.
The following year, the department received one complaint alleging bullying. Last year, three complaints were made in relation to bullying, and one in relation to sexual harassment.
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The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth received four complaints, as did the Department of Housing, which said all complaints related to bullying allegations, three in 2019 and one last year.
The Department of Agriculture received three complaints, two relating to bullying in 2020 and one relating to sexual harassment last year.
One complaint of harassment and two complaints of sexual harassment were recorded in 2019 by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The Department of Enterprise and Trade dealt with one formal complaint of bullying in 2019, and one informal complaint of sexual harassment in 2021.
One complaint of sexual harassment was received by the Department of Defence during the three-year period.
No records
The Departments of Education, Higher Education, An Taoiseach, Tourism and Transport all said they had no records of complaints of this nature.
The Departments of Environment, Finance and Rural and Community Development said no complaints were made during the time period.
No formal complaints of this nature were made to the Department of Health.
The Department of Public Expenditure said it could neither confirm nor deny that it holds any records of such grievances.
The complaints were made under the “Dignity at Work: An Anti-Bullying, Harassment and Sexual Harassment Policy” for the civil service and concerned complaints from staff members against other staff.
The information was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Ursula Connolly, a lecturer at NUI Galway’s school of law who focuses on workplace bullying, said the last comprehensive study of all Irish workers took place in 2007.
“It found that 7.9 per cent of workers had been bullied. The figure for public sector workers was higher, 10.5 per cent of these workers reported being bullied, compared to 6.9 per cent of private sector workers.”
This study also showed that only 20 per cent of those affected by bullying used a grievance procedure at their place of work, said Ms Connolly.
Workplace cultures are key to ending bullying, according to Ms Connolly. “Leadership that models a culture of respect and zero tolerance of bullying and incivility, and management that shares and practices this value is important.”