Professor Fidelma Ashe:

I know Monica McWilliams and Bronagh Hinds very well. I am a member of a local peacebuilding group which convenes every couple of months to discuss peacebuilding issues and they both attend. The work I am doing now is very much based on the experience of the Women's Coalition. The work I referred to, the published work, is in the form of a book that looks at all the gender dimensions of the Good Friday Agreement.

As for the debate on constitutional change, the provisions the Women's Coalition achieved in the Good Friday Agreement are important aspects. They included the civic forum, which was an important participatory forum that may not have been ideal in its original form but could have been worked up. However, we lost it. The Women's Coalition inserted provisions on shared education, addressing social needs and the rights of victims and survivors. It was involved in putting all of those provisions in the agreement but other issues took priority and those issues became part and parcel of the political culture and were the ones that were debated. I believe there is a lot to be learned there. A concern of mine is that women will be brought into this process and be viewed as good for the process, as contributing to and benefiting the process, but their aspirations and objectives will be slowly pushed to the side after any decisions have been made.

As the Deputy said, it is important to look back at the last period of constitutional change in 1998, at the Women's Coalition and its aspirations. It is important to have a deep focus on the connection or bridge between policymakers and the grassroots. The importance of that bridge from the grassroots to political forums is something that women flagged up in our research. I am not sure if that answers the question but I could not go back home if anyone thought I was ignoring Monica McWilliams.