There were reports this week that could lead to another import for Irish workplaces, this time by US companies: harassment awareness training. These courses, designed to curb sexual harassment at work, were in the news again this week when a New York financial house, Lew Lieberbaum & Co, paid $1.75 million in out-of-court settlements to former employees, and introduced compulsory awareness training.

On mature reflection, The Margin will spare its readers all of the details of the case. Suffice to say it involved the hiring of lesbian strippers for parties, systematic indecent exposure, routine demands for oral sex, hiring of "wow girls" attractive women who had no real job to do in the office and promotion or favouritism of those who succumbed to sexual advances by managers.

In one account, the Guardian described the atmosphere at the firm, according to one of the victims: "If one of the women was on a business call, the same broker would frequently snatch the receiver and start shrieking obscenities down the line, even to clients. If the women received a personal call from their boyfriends, [the broker] would tell the caller that the women they were seeking was under the desk performing oral sex on him."

All of this, and much, much worse, was fuelled by a surplus of young male hormones, huge salaries, bonuses like telephone numbers, a round-the-clock supply of cocaine, trade union-less offices, and a majority of workers too cowed to defend their colleagues.

Of course, none of those conditions apply here in the Irish financial services sector . . .