Mr. Seán Cooke:

I will answer the first part of the question before passing over to Mr. Kelly Ryan on how we engage men and boys in a practical sense in the issues of gender violence and gender equality. We work through a transformative approach. This is a positive approach, one that is strengths based and engages them on their mental health in these areas. Under our White Ribbon campaign, a pledge is made never to commit, condone or remain silent on violence against women or gender-based violence. This is a critical and bold statement and we need to give young men and boys agency to say it.

After the Ashling Murphy case, there was a great deal of conversation and many people said that we needed to get men and boys involved in that conversation. While that is true, we must also decide how. We need to tell men and boys to buy a white ribbon, take the pledge and have that conversation. We talk about stepping into the conversation. There are three steps: men and boys need to step into the conversation, listen to the women in their lives, hear their testimony and understand what they are talking about and where they are coming from; they need to step up and challenge the attitudes and behaviours, not of everyone, but of their peers and friends in locker room-type conversations and say that they are not comfortable with them and they are not what should be happening; and step back and acknowledge our privilege as men. I am here today, white and-----