Dr. Karan Casey:

People of my generation would have called that groping. I thank the younger campaigners for teaching me the language, for teaching us all and for being very brave in reframing this behaviour as sexual assault and rape. My age group in particular has been silenced over the years. The difficulty often is that the person is in very precarious employment. It is not like we all have masses of money. We have to put up with a lot of this behaviour because, often, we have to go back to work with these people.

I want to inject a bit of hope into this. It is great that we are here. I thank all of the campaigners and women who have come forward. I particularly thank Senator Warfield, who has been very good. We need to think about what we want. We need to ensure that the four-year-old girl, who is a dark-skinned child living in Ennis and learning to play the fiddle, can, in 20 years' time when she will be 24, go to a session wearing whatever she wants; lead the tunes and sing whatever songs she wants; go to the toilet without having to bring her pint with her in case it is spiked; go outside later and walk down the road in the dark; and go to practice and, when returning home in the dark, not need a chaparone and be able to get to her door, put her hand in her pocket for her key and not look over her shoulder. That is what we are all working towards. It is really important that we keep that in mind.