Ms Triona Pender:

I will speak to the Senator's last point. I will also be attending that AkiDwA conference next week and I am glad the Senator brought up FGM because it is so important. It is linked with early marriage, in that when girls get circumcised, they are immediately taken out of school and married off. Some say this is a cultural issue, but it is not. It is a human rights issue. We are trying to tackle this in all the communities in which we work and where it is practised. In Ireland, we have funding for our programme on women's rights. There is also a programme in Cork through which we work with the migrant communities on FGM. More investment is needed from the Government to highlight this issue with the Irish police force and healthcare workers outside of the Dublin area, as most of these migrants are outside Dublin. When people leave their home countries, they cling to their cultures much more. One thing we do is explain to migrant communities here that we have dealt with this issue in some of the communities they are from, and that it has now been rejected and girls are back in school. We try to show them that here. That is one thing we are trying to do because FGM is so strongly linked with girls dropping out of school.