Ms Sophie Nelson:

It is a great question that I also contend with myself. A great start would be that we are collecting research and data and assessing where the needs-based support lies. Within the Northern Ireland Assembly, there are efforts to do that with quality impact assessments, for example, to assess where there is a need for funding. The extent to which those are adhered to can be called into question, so we need a wide-scale evaluation of where we are now. There needs to be data collection and analysis of that. We then need to assess where the need is and, from that, we need to assign a fiscal framework regarding where this funding is going to go and where it is most needed.

What also needs to come out of that is the sense that a little funding can go a long way. If we can provide a basic level of support to meet people's baseline needs, we are going to go a long way towards encouraging their participation in public life. Without access to mental health support and access to gender-affirming healthcare for trans people, people are kind of locked out of those discussions before they even begin in the sense that they are not able to participate fully because they themselves have issues they are contending with in their personal lives.

When we spoke to women, there was a sense that they are just surviving, not thriving. We need to address people's baseline needs before we go any further to address how we can encourage more participation within these discussions, but that needs to come from a wider assessment.