Ten students and staff members were fined, suspended or expelled from Irish colleges following sexual harassment allegations over a five-year period.
There have been 75 reports made between 2015 and 2020, according to Freedom of Information figures released to Newstalk.
A recent survey from the Higher Education Authority showed thousands of students are experiencing some form of harassment at college.
One student, Maeve, says "unfortunately, especially as a young woman, it's just kind of something that's almost built into the fabric of, in particular, nights out".
She said: "It's always something that's in the back of your mind, and that's a shared experience I'd have with a lot of my friends."
These new figures show just 75 reports of sexual harassment have been made by staff and students over the last five years.
Noeline Blackwell, chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, says many cases are going unreported.
She observed: "The figures cannot, in any way, be seen as indicative of the real extent of sexual harassment and abuse in colleges.
"But they don't surprise me, because it has been clear to us that actually there was no confidence within the systems in our universities in reporting sexual harassment and abuse. Therefore, the figures were small."
Irish colleges have spent €170,000 on legal costs and investigation costs relating to sexual harassment between 2015 and 2020.
They all insist no student or staff member has been asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement following an allegation.
That's disputed by independent senator Lynn Ruane.
She said: "I find it hard to understand how they can say that with such confidence when we have reports of everyone from academic staff to students who have reported being asked to either sign an NDA or versions of NDAs.
"My concern here is not necessarily that colleges are outright lying, but that they don't actually know what's happening on a localised level within the colleges.
"If you're in a science department or in medicine, most grievances are dealt with locally - they're not dealt with on a university scale."
Many colleges have now introduced consent classes and anonymous reporting tools as part of efforts to tackle the problem.
UCD, biggest university in the country, introduced an anonymous system in 2020.
In the first year that was up and running, 123 reports were made.
70% were from women, and that was in a year when campuses were closed for extended periods because of COVID.
Since that system is not replicated in all colleges, there are potentially hundreds of cases going unreported and action not being taken.
You can listen to the full report from The Pat Kenny Show below:
