Ms Louise Coyle:

In Lurgan, we work with rural women and rural women's organisations across the regions of the North. We are dealing with all kinds of issues in a post-conflict situation. Senator Black has outlined some of them. In addition, we find that people are suffering social isolation and that impacts on the mental health of people living rurally. We have been dealing with a lack of investment in resourcing efforts to address those issues in our jurisdiction because the money is just not there. We have no government to appeal to at the moment to redress the situation but I know the health service was being looked at when it was functioning. There seems to be a plan in place but it cannot be executed in the absence of a government. Real people are still dealing with their real issues, however.

We also have to prepare to deal with the implications of Brexit and its impact on access to services. For those living in a Border area, the services they might wish to access could be on the other side of the Border. We have become good at moving people around and we are used to being able to work, live and traverse our island freely. Our members are very clear that there is no good news on Brexit for them. They want to continue to live their lives the way they always have and that includes being able to access services. There is a need to deal with the mental health impact on families who are rurally isolated. If women are impacted, their entire family will be impacted and vice versa. It is intergenerational. We are part of an historically patriarchal society in which the care and responsibility for members of families fall to women. That is particularly the case in rural areas. There is a great burden in trying to care for people, whether that involves dealing with issues such as suicidal thoughts, addiction or mental health issues.

To return Senator Black's question, our job as an organisation is to try to support those people and link them to existing services. However, they have all of the frustrations I have just outlined.

Bringing this back to what the charter can do about that, it cannot sort the health service. What we can do is talk to the likes of Longford Women's Link and ask where it is getting its help from and what has worked for it. We can see what is happening in Scotland and what is working there. Scotland is away ahead of us on gender equality and other matters. It is a question of determining where the learning is and how we distil it. As director of an organisation, whose role is to amplify the voice of our members, I consider it my job to try to talk to all of the committee members and whoever else can be in a position to make a change for that. We cannot change it. We can merely try and get the information and the support to our members. I hope that is not an unwieldy answer but that is the gist of what we do.