Ms Abby Ryan:

I can certainly get started. On Afghanistan, I am not an expert on it so I apologise if I cannot give the Chair all the information on that. For me it is clear in those moments that the work in communities, particularly around gender-based violence prevention, is really important. When perhaps there is not a possibility to engage in looking to change regulatory systems that work happening directly in communities with GOAL, World Vision and all the members of the consortium becomes ever more to the front of your mind. I might let some others speak on that in a minute.

On FGM, it is hard to measure progress on these things. One of the fears you have is some things we are hearing are about a slight trend change in FGM moving more towards medicalisation of it. That is very worrying. If doctors are performing FGM and cutting in countries that is a really different challenge we are facing. You hear in some countries that is where the trend is going. There has been much work done by lots of organisations trying to work in communities to try to change mindsets on FGM. That is the slow work of changing people's perceptions on this being the right thing to do. Here in Ireland that is also coming up as working with communities here and some of our organisations, for example Action Aid, are working in direct provision centres on issues around FGM. It is a challenging one for sure.

I might pass over to Ms Van Lieshout to talk about the UN Security Council. To clarify, the eight meetings were meetings we had internally with the Department.