Ms Tara Farrell:

I thank the Chair and Deputy Calleary for the question. I will be brief and then hand over to Dr. Ní Lochlainn. The Deputy has highlighted the crux of this situation. To pick up on the point made by Dr. Soares in his opening statement, as civil society organisations we are getting on with things. Longford Women's Link has been involved in at least six cross-Border programmes in recent years. Several of them were initiated by us because we see the parallels in the context of the difficulties and potential solutions shared between women's organisations. We are involved in a programme with WOMEN'STEC in Belfast that looks at women in non-traditional spaces. We are just starting a programme with the Northern Ireland Rural Women's Network, NIRWN, entitled, From Grassroots to Government. Both of those endeavours are supported by the reconciliation fund.

I mentioned earlier that financial resources are important. The reconciliation fund, in particular, has been important in allowing us to do this work, which goes beyond financial resources in many cases, however. What we need in addition is for the outcomes of these projects to be listened to and to be incorporated in other areas. That is why appearing here this morning and being able to share the results of our work is so important.

We are working in several spaces, including rural engagement, adult education, domestic violence and so on. Anecdotally, what I am hearing from many of our colleagues is exactly what Deputy Calleary said in respect of the uncertainty around the protocol. It is suggesting to us that organisations that may be more distant from the Border and this type of work geographically are either not considering the opportunities or are actively deciding that the current uncertainty means that they will not engage. For me, that is the crux of the issue. We are concerned that we are regressing a little. The Deputy mentioned the context of the pandemic. We have started to see the "them and us" type of language creeping in again and references to who was travelling over the Border at different stages, depending on the restrictions, to do shopping or to engage in social activity, etc. That is unhelpful. It is important therefore for us to have a structured pathway to be able to feed the work we are doing into committees like this and to policy-makers and to endeavour to put in place proper structures so that we can engage on an all-island basis.

As stated earlier by Dr. Soares and others, we cannot have proper meaningful engagement without organisations from the South as well as the North. I will hand over to Dr. Ní Lochlainn now.