Ms Rachel Cahill:

One of the findings from our report is that women are not in favour of increased security or increased transport police. That took us a bit by surprise. However, on delving into that, we realised that it comes back to the social norms formed in early childhood, teenage years and young adult years. Women largely take on the responsibility for their own safety and feeling secure in a given situation and, because of that, increased presence of security staff on trains was not the answer. That is why women were not as strongly in favour of that as the men who answered that question. Women largely take on that responsibility themselves, whether by carefully choosing their route home or taking measures such as holding keys in their hand, wearing headphones, only wearing one earphone, pretending to speak to someone on the phone as they walk home, wearing flat shoes or having flat shoes in their bag at all times. In the ethnographic research, some of the interviewees used language around having to run or having to get away. This is the language the people themselves were using, which is very powerful to play back when producing a report like Travelling in a Woman's Shoes. I do not know if that answers the question. I may have wandered off a little but it is an important finding from the report. That is why women are looking for a more holistic solution, such as lighting or not having overhanging bushes or trees, looking at the first mile and last mile, gender-sensitive training or roster training for people in the transport sector. We need all those things added together. That co-creation piece is also important. All together, solutions will begin to appear.

On the data, because we do not have gender-segregated data, it is very difficult to get under the bonnet and pinpoint exactly what is needed or what the solutions are. The starting point is getting the data. That sounds easy but it is not. As Ms Fox mentioned when talking about Luas Finglas, getting those data requires changing the form to include gender. Even doing that was an achievement as it challenged the norms and the ways things have been done over the years. That is where we are. We are starting. Have I answered the question?