Inside Culture – S2#27 (Minister Heather Humphreys, Lian Bell, Willie White, Andrew Hetherington, Matt Valentinas)

On this weeks show, Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys joins Fionn Davenport to discuss her department’s response to workplace harassment in the arts and culture sector. Some of the key topics being discussed by Minister Humphreys will include how to effectively tackle workplace harassment, whether it’s time for new legislation to be introduced and the need for more money to be allocated for the arts in the budget.

We report back from a recent seminar Screen Training Ireland hosted entitled Dignity in the Workplace with speakers including Karen O’Loughlin, John Gormley and Ray Yeates providing information on best practice and procedures for addressing inappropriate behaviours in the workplace. The seminar focussed on the Irish arts sector.

Also on the show, Lian Bell of Waking The Feminists, Willie White, Artistic Director of the Dublin Theatre Festival and Andrew Hetherington from Business to Arts join Fionn in studio to discuss bullying and sexual harassment in the arts and culture sector. The panel will debate whether this is a turning point in terms of tolerance of inappropriate behaviour within the sector, what people directly involved in the creative industries have done and need to do to change attitudes and behaviour.

An Open Film has been billed as the “The Movie Hollywood Doesn’t Want You To See”. The documentary exposes child sexual abuse in the film industry in California and executive producer Matthew Valentinas joins us from Boston to tell us how despite being snubbed by Hollywood the film has been viewed by millions of people online.

Finally, sex doll brothels are a new phenomenon in Europe and reporter Tracey Tough explores the ethics of these brothel populated exclusively by sex robots and explores whether they objectify women.