Professor Jennifer Todd:

I will briefly say something about all three of the issues raised by both Mr. Molloy and Mr. Maskey. The provision for the future is what can absolutely be talked about in small informal gatherings in a way that is necessary now. We found that it was not that everybody was agreed that constitutional change was going to happen but that there was a strong sense that if provision for the future can be more or less accepted with regard to values and so on, then if that is you do not get your first preference, it is not so bad, because you would still get this vision and these criteria for what a good society is going to be.

On the area's discussion chamber, the assembly, systemic deliberation is always "both and" not "either or". There is a chamber in the assembly in Strormont and that could be used as a discussion chamber. Equally, with "both and", with regard to what talk there can be, and the various ongoing discussions in all sorts of sectors, systemic deliberation is supposed to connect up rather than say it is done this way, not that way.

As to what the women's sector needs or what is important there, it relates to some of the institutional details. Dr. McAvoy is an expert in power-sharing and I have also done some work on that myself so it is not that women are unable to do this. Many of the voices talking about the institutional details of a future united Ireland are male voices and many of the women and gender activists we talked to said that this is just not the way we think about these things. The women, gender and LGBTQI+ sectors want more organic deliberation, which comes from where people are actually at. That term "organic" is one people are using a lot and comes from what people are actually concerned with, and what comes up from there to look at what the political answers to these questions are. That also means openness from the top down. It was not that there was too much consultation. When Dr. McAvoy was talking about consultation fatigue, it was the case of while some of these women from the Falls Women's Centre and the Shankill Women's Centre are always asked for their opinion but their opinion is not always taken into consideration. It is accepted, then it stops and they have to give it again next year, the year after and the year after that. Some of these women were talking about being asked the same things again and again, they were saying the same things and it still was not making any impact on policies.