Ms Collette O'Regan:

I cannot stress enough that I do a lot of training, not just with gardaí but with many public services, health services and key services on which citizens depend. I cannot stress enough that there is a perception across society that everything is now fine for LGBT+ people ever since marriage equality came into effect. We are not denying how positive and fantastic that was. It has created a roadblock in people's minds to hear that LGBT+ people are still struggling a lot. It is interesting that the Vice Chair referred to online training. Much of the training requires a strong experiential dimension. Members of An Garda Síochána need to engage in experiential learning whereby they get to feel, from the inside out, what it is like to walk the walk of that identity. That can happen in a 20- or 30-minute exercise. Once they do that, the atmosphere in the training changes, because they get it. It is a Eureka moment and they get it. That is important.

The LGBT+ sector is working with the Garda strategy implementation oversight committee. We are developing training resources. We are developing a series of videos for gardaí of experiences that members of our community have had. They are short videos. Gardaí can see somebody who is gay, lesbian or trans, and hear their story or experience, some of which is positive, though usually it is not so positive. We then have to engage with that. I did it about three weeks ago with diversity liaison officers, who are meant to be the officers who we go to. The level of defensiveness two years into the strategy left me really demoralised. We have much work to do. They have to have felt an experience, because otherwise it is too abstract.