Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

You might not be too far away. It is something I would not have been familiar with, only for the Good Friday Agreement, and we need to do much more of that. We sometimes live in our own silos and we see it here at times when one Department does not talk to another Department. Conversations like those had today are very important. When talking about women in politics for example, bringing women into politics is a challenge. For the last ten years, my party and other major parties have had to have 40% women on the ticket and a lot of work is going on but we missed generations.

One point we have highlighted is social media and the dangers of abuse on social media. I noticed, particularly in these elections, that trying to get candidates from particular communities, especially women was very difficult but that knocking on the doors was not as bad. Sometimes, we claim that politics is such a cesspit that nobody will get involved. It was not bad, people came to the doors 99.9% of the time and while they might have said they were not going to vote for the individual, they were pleasant. We need to dial it down. We have highlighted the dangers of social media but we need to dial it down because we need now get community activists, but especially young women, into politics. As I said, there are two different jurisdictions and it is a lot simpler in the South than in Northern Ireland.

That is it. Our witnesses spoke about childcare and education and they are always welcome.