Ms Tara Farrell:

I will pick up on a couple of points because I am furiously writing notes. The first is in response to the reaction we have had. Within our own networks, the reaction has been very positive and we are referring to that and including it in any submissions we are making, for example, to the Department at this meeting and to the third national action plan on peace and security, because of the role of women in peace building and conflict resolution.

I will pick up on the point that Dr. Soares raised about networking and Senator Coffey's query about the impact on volunteering. The volunteer strategy consultation is starting. There was local government reform in 2013 and we have done considerable work on the impact of that. We are losing institutional memory and we are losing volunteers across communities because the new, changed structures are impacting on their time. It is important to try the new structure of the common charter. We must bring in new blood, new volunteers, while also holding onto that institutional memory and knowledge because it is important.

Going back to the comments made by Deputy Kenny about the product of history is important, as is that idea of learning from the approach we have taken for the new common charter. We have been involved since 2015 and I do not say that the conversations were always easy. There were some interesting conversations particularly at a cross-community level. We brought the first draft of the new common charter - or chapter as it was then - to Scotland first and there were a considerable number of questions about the language in it which we had not anticipated because it was a product of our history. For example, they were asking why we had so many references to culture and language. It meant a very different thing to us, from an all-Ireland version of the charter, than it did from a Scottish perspective. That was interesting and important. We have a platform and structure in place now after five or six years of work and that is very important.