Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Grand. I welcome the fact that Professor Ashe mentioned the importance of reaching marginalised groups and people who unfortunately did not have a great opportunity to achieve great levels of skills or educational attainment.

I remember at a meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly we held in Stormont in March 2023 I arranged for the members of the Women's Coalition to attend and talk about their experience of the talks and in the Assembly in its first iteration. The Women's Coalition did very valuable work and their work was lauded by people of all parties and by the British and Irish Governments as well. I remember some of the Women's Coalition leaders saying at the time that they were very conscious when they were established of the need to get women involved in the peace talks. Going back to 1996, I remember they said that it was unlikely that they would have a good strong voice for women, particularly to make the talks inclusive and particularly for people from marginalised communities. The Women's Coalition's contribution, along with other political parties, was very important in the successful outcome to those talks. They also spoke at that meeting about the need to have champions for women from all backgrounds. I remember that day Karin Smyth, who was a British Labour MP, spoke about the contribution over the years of Baroness May Blood. I knew May very well because she had been a member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly going back many years and was a great champion for the disadvantaged and for people from marginalised communities, and for women's voices as well.

She was a trailblazer at a time when politics was difficult in Northern Ireland and in the community she came from. However, she spoke on behalf of all the people, particularly those who were less well-off and marginalised. It is important that there is good buy-in and participation from women in any constitutional talks, discussions and dialogue going forward. I strongly accept the point Professor Ashe made around citizens' assemblies. They can be valuable but much more extensive dialogue at sectoral level is needed because there are many issues around what the future constitutional position of this country will be. It will not be a matter of a majority North and South. If we are to have a united Ireland, we must outline what our health system, education system and policing service, as well as our likely funding model of raising taxation to pay for services, would be. That is very important.

As regards the shared island concept, there are shared island dialogues on different issues. There is a youth forum and there have been different forums covering different aspects of everyday living. From this point of view, we can learn. It is the type of model in which as much participation as possible is needed.

I welcome the work Professor Ashe has done. Has she or any of her colleagues who led on this research engaged with people like Monica McWilliams, Bronagh Hinds and others who were involved in the Women's Coalition to draw on their experience? Nowadays, there is a tendency to ignore the experience of people who have been through a process and what they have learned from it and what wisdom they can impart on people going forward for similar discussions or talks in the future. We need to draw on the experience and expertise of people.

This committee, led by the Cathaoirleach, Deputy Fergus O'Dowd, did a major a piece of work on the Good Friday Agreement on its 25th anniversary. It met the architects of the Good Friday Agreement such as Bertie Ahern, Jonathan Powell, who was close to Tony Blair and his chief of staff, John Major, John Bruton and other senior civil servants from both our Government and from the British side. It met with political leaders from the Northern Ireland parties as well. We all learned from what they outlined and the experiences they had in the talks process.

I welcome every bit of research that can be done. It is important to ensure that any negotiations going forward are as inclusive as possible and that it is not the same or usual people participating in these discussions. It is important we also have people who are representative of society in general.