Ms Ciara McHugh:

I wish to address the Senator's comment that some women are just not political animals and are not interested. It is wrong to make that assumption. Politics is not accessible for women because of the barriers that we have discussed. We should not jump immediately to the conclusion that women are not interested and it is not what they want to do, given the amount of work that women do in our communities. The issue is not that women are not interested. The issue is that the system is set up in a way that excludes them. That is what we need to address.