Ms Miriam Holt:

I agree with Senator Ruane. With regard to women's political representation, we are trying to get people to vote. We have voter participation programmes. We want people to know the power of their vote. They tell us that it is not a space for them because there is no one like them there. They say no one speaks with their accent. We bring in local politicians before elections. We facilitate the women beforehand to identify their issues. Politicians do not get an easy time when they come in. The women we work with angry that there are not women like them there. The work we do involves using community education approaches to make them see it is their space as well.

We absolutely agree with payment for participating in education. We see women terrified to go on courses in case they lose some of their payment. This is a real barrier. We have to engage with social welfare and provide letters to say they are attending. Ms Glanville can speak a lot more about it because she was a local co-ordinator in Ronanstown. She saw it at first hand.

We are very determined that the women we work with look at us and see that if we can do it they can do it. We all come from or live the communities we work in. We want women to be comfortable coming in the door. We want them to feel like they are walking into someone's house and that it is not scary but a safe space to be in. Our board of management are all from the local communities. We have advisory groups in each of the 17 projects and the women on our board of directors are from those communities also.