Dr. Claire Mitchell:

Go raibh maith agat, Deputy Wynne. This work does need an awful lot of sensitivity. In my book, it was a very brave thing for everybody who participated to tell their stories. I was acutely aware of that. I did it in a way that they had a final say over their own words. They could present themselves the way they wanted. They could take out any locations, family names or anything they felt would open them up to any danger. It is really important to appreciate that. Also, as I have been exploring the political world and bringing these stories into politics I realised that not only sensitivity is needed but a kind of autonomy as well.

I did my PhD in UCD and later worked at the Institute of British-Irish Studies. I worked on evangelicalism at the time. I believe there is something inherited from a religious past in the mindset of autonomy and independent thinking and Protestants are a bit stubborn, or "tran", which means "stubborn" in Ulster Scots. They like to find things out for themselves. If a process is to manage to include Protestants, it will need to throw the doors open and have that questioning and exploration as central in order for it to be valid rather than top-down with a policy already made in a backroom and asking what they think about it. That is quite important to say.

I have been politically homeless in the North of Ireland. My solution was just to be other, to be neither and to opt out of everything. That is a very powerful identity for some people who take a lot of identity and value from not being part of two of the main traditions. I just thought I was part of all of the traditions and wanted a way to express that.

With regard to women and participation, the online stuff is a given and you need to have a thick skin. There are other ways to participate. I would use today as an example of women's participation. I have children and had to get childcare for today. I have a disability also - myalgic encephalomyelitis, ME - so I had to stay down last night but expenses were available for participation in the committee meeting, which is absolutely fine. I am very privileged to be here. I am pointing that out because I am here. I am incredibly committed to this work and this process but a process that looks like this will only get the incredibly committed and I do not think too many of them will end up being women.

In terms of the privacy of these conversations, being unrecorded and Protestants fearing to speak, I feel that this is changing every year. Senator Black will maybe find this in Ireland's Future as well. Maybe at the beginning there was a much smaller pool of Protestant participants that could be drawn on. I have been amazed to see how each subsequent event has opened up with more and more options. That is quite exciting and I think that has some kind of exponential growth where the more of us that are smoked out and stand up, the more people this encourages to feel safe doing it in that space.

There is a lack of trust in political parties across the western world. I think we have so much in common. The media portrays Northerners as crazy cousins, very angry and very loud unionists and loyalists. The unionist and loyalist women I know are not like that. There is a sadness there because we have so much in common in terms of our values, hopes and fears and I hope that will come out in the debates ahead.