Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. With regard to the report I take it to be a whole of government approach. There is a big difficulty with this and I wish the witnesses well. How is progress monitored and assessed? It is a difficult question. The North was mentioned and it is being excluded although I do not understand why. In the North support programmes exist to promote women's participation in conflict prevention, peacekeeping, peace negotiations, peace building and post-conflict transition. It sounds good and we all support it, but the reality is that a woman who is an ex-combatant and who has served time in jail will face discrimination with regard to access to a job. Under new legislation being introduced in this State if such a person applies for a taxi licence he or she will have difficulty. We say we want women involved but the State has established structures which prevent women from getting involved. We say we want them involved, but only at a certain level or a certain distance. This is a difficulty and I do not know how to get around it. If we sign up to this but introduce laws which discriminate against the involvement of such women it is a contradiction. I am interested to hear how the witnesses will respond.