Ms Barbara-Anne Murphy:

I thank the Cathaoirleach. In Bunclody a number of years ago, before town teams became a thing that was set up, we had a town team. Bunclody never had a town council. It has a population of 2,000 people. The town team had the two most local councillors and people representing the local area. The other four councillors in the municipal district did not want to be on the Bunclody town team. That is not to say they did not want votes out of the Bunclody area but they did not want to be on its town team. Then, we come along and it was all set up formally for Enniscorthy. The Enniscorthy town team is allowed to have one representative out of our six and that representative is allowed to chair it. It is a privilege, is it not? It is not me. We had to fight to get the minutes of the town team as municipal district members. We are the ones who are elected and accountable who have to go before the people. The people on the town team are the ones making the huge decisions for our towns. It will impact all of us in the future.

This is something the Seanad Public Consultation Committee has an input into. I spoke about the lack of trust on the part of the Seanad and the national Government in councillors and our ability to do something. At this point, we have to trust that the committee will do something about what we have said and take this issue and move it on. That includes not just town teams but all of the different aspects we brought up, such as cyber safety.

One of the reasons women do not go forward for politics, for example, is that we do not feel safe. I was first elected in 2004. In 2006, I was having a late evening snooze before going to my niece's 21st birthday. Living in the middle of the countryside, we did not lock our doors at the time. We did not even close our doors on a summer evening. I woke up to find a man in my living room with a file in his hand, similar to the one I have here, which I took from Councillor McGrath. Being me, I stood up, walked straight against him, took the file from his hand and backward-walked him out the door. As I put him out, I said I was not going to talk to him. I shut the door and opened the file. It contained newspaper cuttings of me from the previous two years since I had been elected to the council. Granted, the man did not touch me or do anything to me but he frightened the living daylights out of me. That was before this kind of abuse came online. Even if he was not being threatening, I felt threatened to have someone coming into my home and approaching me where we are supposed to be at most safe. We must take that into consideration and I would like the committee to do so. I will trust it to do something about it.