Ms Helen McHugh:

Regarding the research, as part of the development of the diversity and inclusion policy, we had specific communities that we wanted to target in order that we could hear about their lived experience of sport and physical activity, and the barriers they faced in that respect. We have received some good feedback from the LGBTI community in general. It is not disaggregated within the community, but we know that anxiety or fear about experiencing homophobia is a barrier. There are attitudinal barriers and the like. We have specific research, and we have taken specific insights from the community on board and are using as part of our work in that space. In terms of gay men, this ties a little into the question that Senator Byrne asked. The feedback is not disaggregated, but we know that there are different challenges facing different members of the community. This is something that we may look to dig into more.

In terms of our overall research approach, we have added a question on sexual orientation to the Irish sports monitor, so we are gathering some information in that space as well.

We added a specific module around inclusion into the Irish sports monitor last year to get insights from people in that regard. We do have data available to us that drive the decisions we make in that space.

I will just mention Sporting Pride and the #LetsGetVisible campaign. We work very closely with that organisation. There is somebody from Sporting Pride who sits on our advisory group and takes part in that. We have worked on the #LetsGetVisible campaign in partnership with Sporting Pride for the past three years, mostly delivered during Pride Month. It was kind of an online campaign but we are building on that this year. We are hosting an event on 21 October on campus where we are inviting all the LGBT sports clubs, LGBT people, their allies and the community in general to come out to the campus for the day. We have some panel discussions taking place and some physical activity happening afterwards. That is a specific body of work we are doing with Sporting Pride and we will look to build on that continuously and build on our relationship with Sporting Pride and the broader community.