Ms Judy Walsh:

The broader political context nearly always impacts the appetite for reform, or perhaps people's sense of the feasibility of it, at a given juncture. I sit on a trans-European equality law network so I talk to colleagues from every country. I have colleagues in Czechia, Hungary, Romania and Latvia, for example, who are experiencing not just a lack of progress on equality but things going in the opposite direction. Ireland has a major chance to be a leader and say we are a progressive country and want to build on the momentum of things that are globally recognised as major markers, such as the marriage equality campaign, and to say we are going to go forward and not backwards. It is not important just for us and all of us living on this island. It is exceptionally important that Ireland takes leadership in a European sense. We will have the Presidency of the European Council next year. It would be wonderful to be able to announce at that we have just done an upgrade on our equality laws, we stand behind them, we have expanded them and we are trying to enhance them. Not everything will be done overnight but it would be about having the ambition at least to say we want to lead on this.