Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank each of the witnesses for their powerful and informative contributions, which will most certainly aid us in our work on this newly established committee. I will go back to AkiDwa, if the witnesses do not mind. I am sorry to be focusing the spotlight on them. In my previous role working with Irish Aid, I was very fortunate to meet a wonderful lady, Ifrah Ahmed, who has done a lot of great work in this area. We were lucky to be able to assist her in developing some really helpful programmes in her home country of Somalia. Until I met her and had some lengthy conversations with her, I was not aware of the significant risk posed to young women and girls here in Ireland. I thank AkiDwa for the work it is doing in highlighting that. We have had legislation in place for almost ten years now. It is a decade on. It is most unfortunate that we do not have the national action plan in place to match that. I hope it will be helpful to the witnesses and their work if this committee focuses on getting some action on that as part of the work we are doing.

I have two questions, which are at different ends of the spectrum with regard to how we are going to address the challenge of FGM here in Ireland. On the first issue, Dr. Munyi outlined very eloquently the pathway for somebody living somewhere like Clonakilty or Galway, where I come from, if they are a victim of FGM. Both she and Dr. Mbugua also spoke about things being culturally appropriate. How important is it right now to have a programme of education within our school system, at primary level and perhaps more important, at post-primary level, that could somehow effect a cultural change so the practice of FGM would no longer be tolerated anywhere within Irish society? The green schools programme from An Taisce, which is very powerful, has successfully effected a major cultural shift within Irish young people around sustainability and environmental protection. Do the witnesses have any ambitions around engaging with the educational system?