Ms Laura Harmon:

I apologise that I was precluded from joining the committee two weeks ago due to technical issues. I am speaking in a personal capacity as a member of Ireland's Future, which I joined a number of months ago. I am part of the events' team, I am excited to be on board and I am excited about this dialogue that is already happening. It is important that we facilitate these conversations in a proper manner and that we are part of them.

I work for the Irish Council for International Students and I used to work the National Women's Council of Ireland in Dublin as well. As part of that work, I was the head of voter mobilisation for Together for Yes. Previously, back in 2015 I was the president of the Union of Students in Ireland, which is an all-island organisation that represents students North and South. It also has a trilateral agreement with the student union in Britain and in the North so that provides a lot of learnings. I would have been involved in making submissions to the Constitutional Convention between 2012 and 2014 in the lead-up to marriage equality and the Citizens' Assembly, particularly the one on the eighth amendment to the Constitution.

I am from a Gaeltacht in Cork and I have been in Dublin for a number of years. The reason I joined Ireland's Future is that there is a need to have a non-political entity driving this. We saw in recent referendums the importance of having these conversations led by citizens. That is not to say that politicians should shy away from those conversations. They should be involved in them but they should be citizen-led initiatives that are inclusive of all aspects of society and they should not be tied to one political party or another. It is important for us to bear that in mind.

I will get to the questions that were asked. On young people, I echo what Reverend Sutherman has outlined and it is fascinating to hear the views those young people have expressed. It is great that the shared island unit is engaging with young people as well and that those conversations are happening. When it comes to young people and from my previous experience with the Union of Students in Ireland, one of the reasons the marriage equality referendum in particular was so successful is that we saw mass voter registration drives of young people. Young people were part of the conversation and they were not just a sideshow but they were at the table, which is important for this issue. When we are talking about a shared island and having these dialogues, we should not just be going off in silos and just having specific youth consultations. Those are important and we need to consult with all the representative youth groups and ensure that young people from all creeds and backgrounds with different languages, including the Traveller community, the Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, LGBTQ, community and the migrant community are represented. Also, when we are having conversations, young people need to be included with older people and be at the table when there are panels and debates happening. It should not just be a sideshow with young people. They need to feel that they have ownership of this issue and that they are just as valued as any other age group in society. That is important.

I know the Citizens' Assembly was discussed at the last meeting as well. First, having it citizens-led is important if it is to be a citizens' assembly but politicians and political parties should not just take a back seat either. Political parties need to step up and be responsible for the issue but it is important that it is citizens-led. One of the things that worked well with the Citizens' Assembly which started in 2016 was that it was not polarised and that there was a random selection for it. That is not to say that any future citizens' assembly should purely be a random selection of citizens. This would be a completely new entity because it will have to include the North and the South and citizens in the North will be vital in their self-determination around this issue.

It is valuable to include citizens who might not necessarily have been involved with the issue before and who might not have their opinions made up yet. That is all part of the process. People are on a journey to figure out where they stand on the issue and to figure out what issues are important to them in terms of a shared island, education, health, a post-Brexit economy and issues of rights. We need people at the centre, therefore. We need to have an opportunity for groups to feed in from all perspectives with their issues. These include issues of unity, issues from youth groups and issues from all relevant sectors. People must be able to make submissions and request to address the assembly if that is what it will be called. There will be recommendations out of it that can then be taken into consideration by Governments.

Planning is really important because the public across the island are ahead of politics. These conversations are already happening in schools, around kitchen tables and in workplaces. I have personally seen such an increase in people talking about this issue, not just in the media or in places like this but in everyday life. We need to be ahead of the curve, start planning and start looking at what models will work best. That is not to say this is something that should be rushed but it is something that needs to be planned and to have forward-thinking. It should never be something that is rushed but it needs to be started now because these conversations are already happening.