Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Professor Todd and Dr. McEvoy. This is a exemplary piece of research not only in what it tells us but how it was conducted because I can clearly see it was done from a community development perspective. It is primary research that reaches people who sometimes can be hard to reach; people who are left out of decision-making, people who have a significant amount to offer and people we have a lot to learn from. Even from reading the paper, I can see things I have not seen cited before so this committee is grateful to everyone involved in this research, together with the work that was presented by the Transitional Justice Institute at Ulster University, which includes Fidelma Ashe, Eilish Rooney and Joanna McMinn. I can see correlations between the research and findings of both groups. This contributes very significantly to the work this committee is doing. The witnesses will know that we are part way through our hearings on issues relating to the constitutional future. The broad headings for our work are finance; and economics, including pensions and social security; healthcare; environment; natural resources; education and skills; democratic planning; women and constitutional change; and human rights and equality. The witnesses' work will feed into that. What we discuss here will come under a few of those different headings, particularly democratic planning and women and constitutional change. Hopefully, our work here in respect of the experts we invite in to discuss these issues will also be helpful to the witnesses' discussions in the future, to their research and to the women and others who have contributed to that work. Working together, we can bring the conversation on.

It is particularly helpful that the witnesses' research focuses on the multiplicity of voices. I will probably go to the end to ask my first question because I really like what they are identifying regarding what the future steps might be. My colleagues will come in on the other questions. What do the witnesses need in order to progress their work? What do these groups need? As they do not want the research to be left on a shelf, what do we need to scale up this really valuable work for them to be able to participate and in terms of the collaboration between the different groups that are doing work that is not the same as the witnesses but similar in order that we can have a framework for that? What does the framework look like? Regarding the research centre mentioned by the witnesses, who would do that, how do we bring it on and how can this committee help?