Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Apologies have been received from Deputy Feighan and Senator O'Hara. I welcome Ms Helen Crickard from Reclaim the Agenda and Ms Elaine Crory from the Women's Resource and Development Agency. I thank them both for their attendance.

I will read a note on parliamentary privilege to our guests, which we must do before every meeting. I will explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references witnesses may make to another person or persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both the Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. However, witnesses and participants who are to give evidence from a location outside the parliamentary precincts are asked to note they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness giving evidence from within the parliamentary precincts does and may consider it appropriate to take legal advice on this matter. Witnesses are also asked to note that only evidence connected with the subject matter should be given and should respect directions given by the Chair. They should also respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should neither criticise nor make charges against any person, persons or entity either by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

I thank the witnesses again for coming. They had a delayed journey this morning, I understand. I invite Ms Crickard to begin.

Ms Helen Crickard:

I thank the Chair. Reclaim the Agenda was established in 2010 during a period of funding cuts across government departments and changes with the European Social Fund. We recognised in the women's movement that this would have a serious impact on our women's centres, which receive small pockets of funding across multiple departments. To ensure and maintain connectivity and not competition we reinstated the International Women's Day rally to bring all our women's centres together with the wider women's movement.

Reclaim the Agenda campaigns under six key themes: a life free from poverty, discrimination and domestic and sexual violence and abuse, to live in a world where women are equally represented as decision makers and have access to quality, affordable and flexible childcare.

The Good Friday Agreement provided assurances that the voices of women in civic society would be heard. As chair of the Women’s Coalition at the time, it was hard fought to have a civic forum included in the document. It was vital for the women we represented across Northern Ireland that it would act as a consultative mechanism on social, economic and cultural issues. The injustices that women faced during the conflict have not improved equally across society, as it is women from disadvantaged areas who continue to suffer under paramilitary control. While protocols are in place to ensure cross-party support on decisions on the allocation of resources, it has been a carve-up between the two main parties, resulting in the duplication of services and investment in areas that have dominant support from one party and reinforces sectarianism. The lack of strategies, such as violence against women and girls, anti-poverty and childcare have been unduly slow to set up and where they are signed off, the resources have been totally inadequate. The lack of attention to these policies has further disenfranchised the voice of women, whose participation in society relies on having adequate childcare and elder care. The resourcing of the women’s centres and community sector is insufficient, with a patchwork of funders and annual contracts. The sector is heavily scrutinised, meaning it is in constant firefighting mode.

The women’s centres are the front line in communities. They are often the first point of contact for women who seek help for their families, be it domestic abuse, mental health, drug addiction, suicide, poverty, bullying, coercive control or financial abuse from paramilitaries. They are excellent in providing support and signposting services, yet they are seriously underfunded and under pressure. Our population has a changed a lot since 1998 and the Racial Equality Strategy 2015-2025 has made little inroads is addressing racial inequality, while the women's centres accommodate the new emerging families with little or no additional financial resources.

The implementation of the Good Friday Agreement has focused on joining the green and orange, but our society has always been so much more than that. The dysfunctionality of Stormont is clear from the financial scandals that reveal a cavalier approach to the public purse. Constant squabbling over power with little accountability has led to an apathy towards Stormont and power-sharing. Tackling paramilitarism has further entrenched those in communities who have had or have weaponry. Rather than challenging them, they have been appeased. There are clear outstanding commitments from the Good Friday Agreement. The bill of rights is critical now since the UK pulled out of Europe against the majority of the will of the people in Northern Ireland, but also from subsequent agreements, particularly the social inclusion strategies on poverty, gender, disability and LGBT+ that are not implemented. The work of the women’s centres continues to hold the peace and build relations with new emerging communities without the financial support that should be in place.

The legacy Bill is of great concern for us as well. Of course, it could be overturned, but it is about the treatment and lack of respect we received.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I invite Ms Crory to make her opening statement.

Ms Elaine Crory:

I thank the committee very much for having me. I work with the Women’s Resource and Development Agency, WRDA, which was founded in 1983, while the conflict was still in full swing. Originally called the Women’s Education Project, it sought to educate and empower women to overcome the many barriers they faced in a place that was beyond a standard patriarchy, but an “armed patriarchy”. Some 41 years later, much has changed, but much remains the same. This includes our core mission at WRDA and in the intervening years, we have been involved in significant peacebuilding and community relations work alongside our partners in the sector and the many women we have worked with in all communities.

One of the barriers we face in seeing real progress is the fact that the Good Friday Agreement has not been fully implemented, either in word or in spirit. We continue to fight for a bill of rights. In fact, quite a lot of the time, we continue to struggle to have rights respected and recognised at all. We have actively fought for many banner wins, such as equal marriage and abortion rights, but sadly these have only come to us through Westminster. A rights-based society remains an unrealised ambition. Civic society lost its voice through the ending of the civic forum, which could have lent momentum to the fight for human rights and reconciliation, as well as credibility to the civil society organisations that our government so often ignores. Meanwhile, democratic progress is often stifled by measures like the petition of concern, which is used as was never intended and is part of an interparty agreement over which the population had no say. Integration and reconciliation efforts have not just stalled; they seem to be deliberately stymied, with integrated education underfunded such that demand far outstrips supply, more so-called “peace walls” than we had in 1998, and little to no integrated housing – in fact, little to no new housing at all, with homelessness figures now at around 25,000, of which around 5,000 are children living in temporary accommodation.

We find ourselves often with a massive democratic deficit, with frequent collapse, constant political instability and persistent, neglectful underfunding. Massive cuts have decimated the community sector and civil society, which continues to deliver basic services for the most marginalised on behalf of government but at a bargain bin price. Poverty remains endemic, with the areas most deprived in 1998 still the most deprived now. Our young people emigrate in significant numbers as they do not see a future for themselves in Northern Ireland. Waiting lists for the NHS are the worst in the UK. Our children receive less funding per head towards their education than elsewhere in the UK. We have no childcare strategy, no gender equality strategy, no LGBTQIA+ strategy and no anti-poverty strategy, despite the latter being a legal requirement. We remain the only place on these islands without a strategy for tackling violence against women and girls. While this should change soon, because the work has been done and we are waiting for it to be signed off and funded, we do not have a commitment for anything beyond a fraction of the funding needed. The UK Government brings in measures intended for a different population that are unworkable here in practice. For example, in 2023 it made more childcare hours available to preschool age children in Britain, and required their primary carer to therefore be available for and search for more working hours. This obligation is being forced on parents in Northern Ireland, too, despite no additional funded childcare hours – in fact, no childcare hours at all – being available to them. We have significant rates of deaths of despair, suicide or accidental overdose. In fact, more people have died by suicide since 1998 than during the conflict itself. Paramilitaries are, we are told, still “transitioning”, as they apply for public funding and operate in plain sight. Perhaps worse than this is that we have collectively become used to this state of affairs. Asking for what is seen as standard in other parts of these islands is seen as demanding, unreasonable and even greedy. We often seem to be more of a headache to the governments that act as guarantor of the agreement than a project and a people worth caring about. The Good Friday Agreement was meant to bring us hope and a brighter future. The lack of implementation has instead brought us a new set of problems, while the old ones persist.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Before we hear from Deputy Tully, I thank Ms Crickard and Ms Crory. Their analysis is very depressing, if they do not mind me saying so. I appreciate the heartfelt commentary they made. Could they send us the statistics regarding those issues in order for us to examine them in a more detailed way because they are very disturbing?

Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms Crickard and Ms Crory. While I appreciate their honesty, they have painted a very dismal picture. However, if it needs to be said, it needs to be said and if that is the harsh reality, we all need to hear it. We all welcome the Good Friday Agreement and what it achieved, which is relative peace.

As was pointed out, there is an awful lot of work that needs to be done to truly integrate the people in the North and to create a brighter future on a spectrum of issues. Some of the issues highlighted are encountered by us here in the South as well, unfortunately, around gender-based violence, inadequate childcare and obviously the homelessness crisis. There are a lot of issues where there is commonality and looking at in a shared way and building a new and better Ireland of some sort is the way to go forward. That is why we are having these discussions.

Both witnesses mentioned the civic forum and I ask them to expand on that a little. It was said that it was hard fought for at the time. I ask them to explain why it was established, the work it carried out, the reason it ended and whether there is a possibility of it being re-established. What would it take to re-establish it? From what I know of it, it would be very important in creating integration among people and addressing the issues. They said there is a lot of segregation still.

The bill of rights was also mentioned. It is an extremely important part of the Good Friday Agreement that has not been fully realised or implemented. There are concerns since Brexit that the rights guaranteed by the EU are no longer guaranteed to the people of the North, so they are going to see a widening of rights. Where are we at with that? Is there any hope of a bill of rights?

A petition of concern was mentioned. I do not understand what that is. What was its intended use and how has it been misused?

Ms Elaine Crory:

Ms Crickard can probably say more than me about the civic forum but I will have a go at the other ones. The petition of concern is a mechanism that was brought in under the St. Andrews Agreement of 2007. It operates a bit like a veto but it has to be signed by a certain number of MLAs. Its purpose is to stop legislation that would have an undue impact on one community or the other. Its intention was to stop something that might have sectarian outcomes. It is used in reality, however, for anything that a Government does not like. There was a vote on same-sex marriage that was passed by a majority of MLAs and a petition of concern was used to stop it. There is no obvious reason why same-sex marriage would have an undue impact one community or the other but it was used that way. There are many other examples but that is an obvious one. Its intention was to prevent discrimination but it is actually being used in the opposite way, that is, to effect discrimination and to frustrate the majority of the MLAs. That is why ended up with same-sex marriage coming through Westminster.

In terms of the bill of rights, on the plus side what we have post Brexit, despite there being very few pluses about Brexit, is that in the Windsor Framework agreement as well as the protocol that preceded that, Article 2 states that citizens in Northern Ireland should not experience a diminution of rights and that we should keep pace with rights in the European Union. The actual operation of that is a different thing, but in reality that has meant our Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has brought the UK Government to court over a recently passed piece of legislation on migration which is the mechanism they are using to allow them to deport people to Rwanda, or their attempts to do that. The court case has found that does not apply in Northern Ireland because of the Article 2 provisions that ensure there is no diminution of rights. It is being used through the courts to fight legislation coming from the UK and to protect the rights of people within Northern Ireland.

In practice, what that also means is that any legislation coming out of the EU that should apply across all citizens of the EU then have to be incorporated into one or several Government Departments at Stormont. For example, we are getting the pay transparency directive later in the year and that is going to be in some way enacted in Stormont. I say "in some way" as there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. It may be with the Department for the Economy or the Department for Communities, which, for specific but not obvious reasons, is the Department with responsibility for equalities. If it gets split up, it could lose its impact. We have yet to see how that is going to pan out but it is, in theory, our Assembly keeping up with the rights-based provisions of the European Union. That is one plus from all of this.

There was a lot of work done in the last mandate, which ended in the summer of 2022, in respect of a bill of rights. There was an ad hoc committee and they worked quite hard to have what would be a draft bill of rights but it was blocked, mainly by the Democratic Unionist Party, DUP. It was simply seen as something that was a nationalist or other project and, in effect, blocked by unionists. Various unionist political parties do not seem to have bought into the understanding that rights are for everyone and that the bill of rights would protect them and their rights, including their cultural rights, as much as it would protect anybody else. It seems to be one of the many things in Northern Ireland that, for no apparent reason, is politicised along orange and green lines. I do not see us adopting that. Of course, it could be instigated directly from Westminster but I do not see any inclination or interest in doing that at present.

On the civic forum, I think Ms Crickard could say more but I will say recent arguments about reviving it and bringing it back, which there is a legal mechanism to do so that would not require legislation, have been met with complaints that it is too expensive and unrepresentative even though it has not sat since 2002.

Ms Helen Crickard:

On the civic forum, it was not welcome in the Good Friday Agreement. It was hard fought for and put in and there have not been any resources put towards it. It has not been fully inclusive. The trade union movement was very heavily involved in bringing us towards the Good Friday Agreement but their voices were taken out of it. As Ms Crory said, it would not take much to put it back there but the way we are operating now in a two-party state, it is the majority of voices that get heard so it is very hard for people to take part in that.

Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Some sort of mechanism needs to happen to ensure that the voices of marginalised people are heard, such as women, disabled people, immigrants and people who have come from other countries, people from a Traveller background and so on. They are the people who are not confident or involved in mainstream politics where all the shouting is done. I am talking about my own situation. It is very important that this committee has been looking at what constitutional change will mean and the best way to ensure all voices are heard. We need mechanisms on the ground where people feel comfortable speaking about what actually unites them and what the real issues are on the ground that affect them. I think they will find a lot more commonality across sectors than division.

The witnesses talked about the women's centres and the important work they do and I appreciate that. I presume they are cross-community, or is there opposition to them being cross-community?

Ms Helen Crickard:

No, they are set in areas of possibly high deprivation/ There are some women's centres that are set in single identity areas because that is the area they have, but the women's centres all work together. Part of what Reclaim the Agenda would do is make sure there is that connectivity. We come together on issues such as poverty and childcare and, as Deputy Tully said, there is more we have in common than not. We have had some challenging conversations over the years, particularly around access to abortion. Centres that were totally opposed to that came around to it because it was about a rights-based thing. We are not all singing from the same hymn sheet all the time but we are all talking and working towards what we hope will be a better future for our children.

When you arrive in Stormont as an MLA, it is designated as nationalist or unionist. No other voices get through on that. It is the majority that rules. That plays out on councils as well. Where there is majority rule, a lot of council funding is going to their own people and not actually seeking outside of that. More people are now disenfranchised and removed from access to political life or taking part in social and cultural events.

Of course, we have all of our new migrant communities that are further excluded again. We have some women's centres that have up to 22 different nationalities attending their centre. These would be in areas of high deprivation and they do not get extra funding to accommodate that. It puts the local people out who have been using the centre. They are doing a lot in terms of keeping the peace there, with racial equality, and a lot of them are also still fighting paramilitary involvement. That has not gone away.

Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Education is key and the fact that there is still segregated education is a big miss. When children are put in a room, they do not care about the colour of skin or what religion another person has. The best way to have a more integrated education system is to leave people alone to do their own thing. We need to build from the bottom up.

Ms Elaine Crory:

I agree. One of the issues we have with integrated education is that not only is there not enough available to meet demand, which means significant investment in the sector is required, but also that we have an additional level of segregation around class. The grammar school system was originally intended in the 1960s to open up "better schools" to those from working class backgrounds who scored well in what was known as the 11-plus examination and is now known as the transfer test. It has come a long way since the 1960s. There is now a certain degree of coaching or what we south of the Border - I am originally from Cavan - would call "grinds" to get children through those tests. They take these tests at the age of ten, to get into the better schools. There is a system associated with how well those schools are considered when it comes to doing well later in a person's career, for example. The classism present around school and education does not exist in the Republic. There are private schools here, of course, and we have private schools in the North as well, but they are a very small minority. Most people here go to schools of mixed ability. The name of a person's school does not necessarily convey anything about where they live, the kind of house they live in and the kind of estate they might grow up in. People can go a lot further in life, without anyone ever knowing what background they came from. The same does not transfer over in the North, where the class division is very clear in terms of where somebody went to secondary school, more often than not. It was not intended to do so, but now almost universally does.

Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Absolutely.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms Crory and Ms Crickard. I apologise for not being here for the opening remarks. I was taking part in questions in the Dáil Chamber but I have read the opening statements. They present a very dark picture of important issues that affect people, particularly vulnerable people, those who are less well-off financially and those who suffer particular challenges.

I will make a few comments to which I ask the witnesses to respond, taking into account that I have not heard all of their contributions. I remember when the Good Friday Agreement was achieved and agreed. At that time, Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, who were Heads of Government, stated clearly that there was a huge obligation on the Governments, political parties and society to implement the Good Friday Agreement in full. The agreement was never an end in itself. It was, to a certain extent, the beginning of a new dispensation on this island, which has been transformed. We know it has not been implemented in full but huge benefits have been derived for all of the communities on this island and, of course, in the Irish-British relationship as well.

I remember meeting some of the people who were on the Civic Forum for Northern Ireland at the time and they were enthused by the work and potential of the forum. In my memory, and the witnesses might correct me if I am wrong, it was the major political parties that did not want its existence. They put an end to it, if we can call it that. It was said that people talk about a civic forum being unrepresentative. There are some political parties here that call for a citizens' assembly, no matter what issue arises. I question how representative the citizens' assemblies are but on every single issue, these parties talk of having one. Citizens' assemblies take in people with no expertise in the particular area. If we need meaningful dialogue and discussion, we should have people with particular knowledge who can bring their own experience of the particular issue and expertise to the debate. Political parties talk about a civic forum being unrepresentative, but it is up to the system to ensure a civic forum is representative, with the different sectors, be that the trade unions, women's groups, voluntary groups, sporting groups or youth groups, represented. It must ensure there is socioeconomic balance, reflecting where people come from as well. That is easily achieved - there is no doubt about that - but it is a matter of political will to ensure it exists.

I am not sure whether it was in the Stormont House Agreement or the Fresh Start Agreement but provision was made for a civic panel in one of the subsequent agreements. To my knowledge, that has got nowhere.

With regard to the bill of rights, I understood the British Government would need to agree to that as well. Naturally, the proposal has to come from Stormont. Again, most of the issues that have been highlighted are devolved matters for the Executive and Assembly in the North to resolve. We can all say it is up to the British and Irish Governments to deal with this, that or the other issue, but those issues that are highlighted in the witnesses' statements are local, devolved issues that need funding, leadership, direction and commitment.

One particular phrase used, which I have concern about, was the reference to "a carve-up" between the two main parties. That has to be concerning. I know Ms Crickard was obviously involved with the Women's Coalition. I have great regard for the work that it did in the talks leading up to the Good Friday Agreement and subsequently. At a meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Stormont in early March 2023 we brought members of the Women's Coalition to talk to us about its experiences and the particularly challenging work it had to do to get others to buy into the agenda that Ms Crickard outlined, which far from complete. We discussed the issues that need to be addressed.

We have particular challenges here, as Deputy Tully said, in childcare, housing and all of that but the challenges faced in society in Northern Ireland are much more difficult. I remember Dr. Ciara Fitzpatrick of Ulster University outlining clearly to the committee the lack of a policy with regard to childcare, never mind adequate funding. We have made huge progress in childcare, but we still have challenges because we do not have enough workers to work in the sector. Again, they are issues that have to be resolved locally.

There is no stability to the funding the witnesses' organisations and sister organisations get. Is the Department for Communities their parent department? Which department takes the lead with regard to providing funding and supporting their work and that of their sister organisations? What type of relationship do the witnesses' and other organisations have with the Department for Communities and the relevant Minister? Is any meaningful effort being made by either Sinn Féin or the DUP to ensure adequate funding is provided to the witnesses' organisations, which are providing important services daily to people who need help, are vulnerable and disadvantaged in so many ways?

We are all delighted the Stormont Assembly and Executive are up and running. It is, however, depressing to read that there is very little regard given to the debates the opposition, the SDLP, brings forward and that there is practically no participation by the parties in the Executive in those issues and debates. If government is to function, the work of the opposition has to be respected. There must be engagement. That is what happens every day in the Dáil and Seanad Chambers and in our various committees, where there is robust and strong debate, as there should be, between the Government and Opposition.

I compliment them on all their work as well as all their organisations. If either Ms Crickard or Ms Crory want to make comments on the issues that I have raised I would be glad to hear them.

Ms Helen Crickard:

Certainly. I mentioned the sectarian carve up and that is exactly what is happening, whoever is in power. If there is a healthy living centre to be built in a Protestant area, there will be one built in a Catholic area even though they are a stone's throw away from each other. That is the sort of activity that is happening. Recently, a council in Newtownabbey gave £80,000 for bonfires in exchange for people not putting flags up in the area, so the place would be more welcoming for tourists because it is on the tourist track. These are the sort of things that are happening.

There is no accountability and that is what the civic forum could have helped provide and could have helped lead the way. The leadership is really poor, there is zero accountability and it is quite stagnant in terms of what does happen there. They seem to feel they are above the law, in some way. They set it and they run with it.

Our funders would mainly be the Department for Communities but we are also funded through the Department of Finance and the Department of Justice, so nobody is taking full responsibility for all of those small pockets of money. Recently the Department for Communities gave some uplifts to funding to community centres and women's centres during Covid but none of that has been sustained.

There are funding structures, such as the neighbourhood renewal, that were set up over 25 years ago to deal with areas of high deprivation but there is deprivation outside of those areas as well. That structure is not changing because single identity groups hold onto it and nobody wants to lose their funding. It is not very transparent and there is no accountability. If you are in an area, like south Belfast, where there are five or six political parties, we would struggle to get funding outside of what is already given because it is going to the neighbourhood renewal areas. There are a lot of things that are under review as well. We do not have much hope that it is actually going to create the change we need because there is no accountability and transparency in terms of what is happening. It is a bleak picture.

Ms Elaine Crory:

Picking up on what Ms Crickard said and going a bit further about funding and the relationship with the Department for Communities, it is worth saying quite a lot of the work we are doing in our organisations is funded by charities. Both Ms Crickard and I are 100% funded by charitable trusts. None of that whatsoever comes from Government. Many of my colleagues are funded by a patchwork that comes from different Government Departments or arms-length bodies of Government Departments like the Public Health Agency, PHA, an arms-length body of the Department of Health. For example, the Department of Health was funding little pieces of staff funding or core funding, which was ended entirely last September. This connects to so many of the issues we are describing, which are devolved issues.

I agree completely that one of the big problems is a culture of unaccountability. There is also a degree to which the lack of money is used as an excuse for everything. In the last financial year of 2023-2024, when there was no Executive in place, the budget was set by the Secretary of State and significant cuts had to be made to every single Government Department. Those decisions were made by civil servants. One of the things they did was cut the Department of Health core grant to quite a lot of organisations, including my own, and the only state funding received by the Women's Aid Federation Northern Ireland. It is now the only Women's Aid Federation on these islands that does not receive any state funding at all. It causes ongoing problems because sometimes that is the funding on which they then apply for programme costs to deliver things. That is the funding that keeps the staff in place. They are not the only ones, by any means, but it is a really good example to illustrate what happens when that core funding goes.

It is cut upon cut upon cut. If you ever get an uplift, it is immediately taken away after any crisis. Realistically, by keeping things exactly the same, it is an effective cut anyway, but usually it is an actual cut. We have to deliver more with less every time. The argument always comes down to there is not enough money. I know there is a fiscal framework being set up in agreement with the Treasury in Westminster around restructuring how Northern Ireland is funded, the Barnett consequentials, which will be changed to reflect need in Northern Ireland and what powers are and are not devolved. Wales had a similar agreement where the funding received is 115% of what is received per head in England. The Northern Ireland figure at the moment is 124% but the argument would be that still does not meet the level of need. It would be if we were starting from zero but we are starting from far behind.

Even with that agreement in place and with various other financial ongoings whereby money is coming in to stabilise, normalise and modernise these Departments, apparently, none of that has been spent yet and we do not know how it is going to be spent but it will not be coming down to people like myself, Ms Crickard and our organisations. There is an overall approach from the Executive which very much speaks to the question about the relationship with the Ministers for the various Departments where they will come to us and ask us to work on strategies they want to produce because they have agreed to do it in some agreement, be it the New Decade, New Approach, the fresh start or whatever. They will come to you for their work, they will contribute nothing financially to your organisation and they will take your time and then that strategy may or may not ever see the light of day.

In the last mandate, my organisation, and me personally, spent two years working on a gender equality strategy. I do not know where that is. When the Executive was reinstated and a new Minister came into place, we wrote to that Minister and asked him to tell us the status of that strategy, whether we were going to meet again and whether he was going to sign off on it. We were told he would not meet with us and nothing else. That was February, it is now nearly July and we still have not really heard what has happened with that.

This is a common practice. A piece of work is started, political circumstances change and it is dropped. You are asked continually for your input, but you never see that input reflected in the outputs coming from Government. It speaks again to the point about having no regard for the opposition. There is a different culture in the Assembly compared to this House and, indeed, to normal functioning parliaments elsewhere, which is there is no regard to the issues raised by the opposition. Opposition is, in fact, not the normal state of affairs. You have nearly all the big parties in government together, so they are not really holding each other to account but they have a very siloed approach. It is said this issue is for the Department for Communities, this issue is for the Department of Finance or this issue is for the Department of Health and they all are as separate as possible. They are quite protective of what is in their area and whenever a new piece of work appears, nobody wants to take responsibility for it because they are squaring things off.

Anything that has to be shared among Departments goes to the Executive Office, which used to be called the Office of First and Deputy First Minister, and sometimes that will get things done. Other times, that is the site of the collapse, or relations within that office are the cause of the collapse. You can never be sure when you begin a piece of work that it is going to be seen through to the end, successfully or otherwise. That speaks to the point about the civic panel as well. That has never appeared or been discussed. There was never any move towards making it happen. Of course, the civic panel was a little bit like the civic forum but rebranded and rejigged. I do not think that idea is popular for the same reason they do not have regard to the duly elected official opposition.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses. Before I bring in our colleague, Senator Frances Black, could I ask about what was referred to as the executive committee? There are committees of the Assembly like we have here. The witnesses are engaging with a committee of the Oireachtas today. Does Ms Crory get an opportunity to engage at committee level in public session with the committees of the Stormont Assembly?

Ms Elaine Crory:

Sometimes. The all party groups are separate, but I have been in front of some committees. It is very hit and miss and it really depends on who is chairing the committee and what they particularly want to focus on. Since they have come back in February, I have been before one committee which was the committee of the Executive Office, and it was about the violence against women and girls strategy but it is very hit and miss and you really have to do a lot of work to build up that relationship where they consider you worthy of coming into the committee.

It is very hit and miss, and a lot of work has to be done to build up that relationship, whereby they consider you worth coming in to the committee. It does depend, but it is probably the most effective route for getting answers. The minister for the department the organisation is there to speak about will not necessarily be there. The minister will then be written to separately and asked questions and so forth. We also engage through all-party groups, and there are many of them, on various issues that we are involved with. They are also good at writing to ministers to get answers about issues such the one I raised - what happened to that strategy, etc. It is rare to receive an answer that really answers the question asked.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Sometimes in this State programmes are funded centrally by the Government, but administered at local level through local authorities. With the influx of people from Ukraine and other countries over the last few years in particular, additional resources have been given to our local authorities and other local statutory agencies to deal with some of the issues and provide new community facilities. Our local authorities are the decision-makers with regard to where that funding is disbursed, etc. Do the local authorities have any programmes or funding streams to support the work of the witnesses' organisations and others?

Ms Helen Crickard:

Yes, some would come through those mechanisms and we also have the Belfast City of Sanctuary, which has been a good project. It comes through some of those mechanisms but even at council level, it can be very much majority rule and that is-----

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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That is the point I was just coming to. Is that still the modus operandi?

Ms Helen Crickard:

We feel that is very much the case.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thought there would be a fairness in the allocation of resources at local level.

Ms Helen Crickard:

No. If organisations have the support of a political party, they have more say when it comes to asking for the money and they move higher up the chain. It can still apply, yes.

Ms Elaine Crory:

It is arguably worse sometimes at local level because it does not have the same scrutiny as the Assembly has. There have been particular schemes rolled out, for example, by Belfast City Council, which is where I live. There was one for fuel poverty hardship the winter before last and it used the same organisations for disbursing funding within the communities. Under that the city was divided into north, east, south and west and this had been used for a different piece of funding around Covid-19. It was not opened up to public interest and much of the money that was disbursed into the four areas went into organisations with some degree of connection to various political parties. However, the money was not disbursed in a first come, first served way in some cases. Many people queued outside in horrendous weather in the depths of winter to try to get a voucher and most of the vouchers had been allocated before the doors opened that morning. There was a lot of anger and frustration and a good bit of media attention because it was so public. Many people went directly to the media but that pattern repeats itself on a regular basis.

Having said that, some pieces of funding that some councils have, for example, for gender equality work, are opened widely, including to our organisations, among many others. In that case, it is disbursed with a degree of fairness that is good. That funding should be open to the public and should be filtered through. Instead of one organisation that may have oversight of poverty distributing it on the basis of need, it often goes to those who are deeply connected with elements of the local community and that makes it less fair for members of the public trying to access it.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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To my knowledge, all schemes operated by our local authorities have to be publicly advertised and an application will either meet the criteria or it will not. That is how funding is allocated. It is not allocated on the basis of politics or weighting towards a particular region. It has to be publicly advertised and all applicants are duly considered and analysed. The funds are then allocated on the basis of the quality of the application.

Frances Black (Independent)
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I apologise for being late. I wanted to be here but there was another meeting at the same time that I had to attend. I was there from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m. I thank the witnesses for coming in today to share their expertise and experience with us and apologise for not being here for the opening statements. The witnesses' organisations undertake such crucial work. I am grateful that we are getting an opportunity to incorporate their perspectives into this report.

I hear the witnesses' frustration around the funding piece. It sounds like everybody is managing or protecting their own patch. Do the witnesses find that the most frustrating issue or what is the most frustrating issue for them? In the South, we often have a binary or reductive idea of civic and political life in the North. I hope this committee and the witnesses' appearance today can contribute in a small way to creating a better understanding of life in the North. I wonder about the funding piece that has been talked about at length.

After the end of EU funding in the North and before the restoration of Stormont, it seemed like Northern Irish civil society was facing an existential funding crisis. The witnesses have touched on the impact of that. I ask them to speak about the impact that insecurity and many years of what I would call Tory austerity have had on civil society in the North, in particular on the witnesses' organisations?

Why does funding not come down to their organisations? What is the block there? Is it because many other organisations are protecting their patch? That can be quite divisive. I have always believed everyone should be working together but that is another world, I suppose. It would be ideal if there was a partnering up with other organisations so that people could work together. Will the witnesses expand on the impact the loss of EU funding in the North had on them before the restoration of Stormont?

Ms Elaine Crory:

The loss of all EU funding streams, or most of them, reached a cliff edge last year. The PEACE IV programme, which is ongoing, will be the last one. Those funding streams are for specific pieces of work, so some organisations came to the end of their funding last spring. The way in which many those community organisations operate is they get a certain amount of funding and they use that to bring in more funding because they secured staff under the original funding. When that happened many organisations struggled to get enough funds in to keep going with what they were doing. They were still facing the same level of need, if not more, because, as Senator Black mentioned, austerity has only got worse as time has gone on. They were still trying to make ends meet. With the addition of the cost of living and the increase in bills, even keeping on the lights and the heat in winter became really challenging for them. There are some organisations that will end up going to the wall when all of this shakes out and comes to a proper end.

One of the issues with funding is that it is sometimes very competitive. One of the reasons Reclaim the Agenda exists - Ms Crickard will say more on this - is to prevent such competition within the women's sector. We all operate well together within the women's sector. A large amount of funding coming into a larger organisation like mine will often be distributed or work-streamed to different women's centres. That works pretty well within the women's sector. However, when we come into competition with other sectors, it can seem safe for a funder to go for a larger organisation with healthy reserves, rather than one of the smaller ones. Unless we can bring in big chunks of funding and distribute, those small organisations are not really at the races at all. Funding is a huge frustration for me but sitting alongside that is the treatment by some Government departments which expect organisations to do work for them to produce evidence, research and so forth but do not produce funding for those same organisations.

These pieces of work also disappear when it is convenient. They may disappear for long periods only to be brought back later. It appears that the Government feels the community and voluntary sector is always there to work for free. Therefore, when money is asked for, when complaints are made about issues around funding or when the fact that we are reaching a cliff edge and what can be done about it is raised, it is almost met with hostility. There is an attitude of the sector coming back and asking for more money when it has already been given money and that kind of thing. It is funding combined with this attitude that we are constantly asking for money and feeding off goodwill when, if anything, the need has expanded and the funding has contracted.

Ms Helen Crickard:

When the funding from the European Social Fund was reduced last year, many groups struggled. The UK Government introduced the levelling-up fund, which was administrated from Westminster. There was no say in where that money went at a local decision-making level. There was a great deal of opposition to that. In the women's sector, we were lucky to get that funding for a collaborative project involving four of the main network organisations. We have been able to put that money into the 14 women's centres. They all have part-time workers and a budget for training and education, something they had not been able to do. Sometimes, it can work for you. We would like to be part of the decision-making process in Northern Ireland but because there is not the same transparency, honesty and accountability and such a shortage in resources, people will tend to fund what is already there. Even within our sector, we have had a couple of crèches close such as Small Wonders on the Shankill Road.

During Covid-19, all of the women's centres provided childcare for key workers. When that was over, they were back to their contracts being on protective notice. They are all paid below the minimum wage. There is a lack of respect of what we do within that sector. There is this attitude that we will not do it anyway. That is not good enough. People will say that women should not do it anyway, but there is no way women's centres are not going to provide what they have.

There are other things, such as the cap the Department for Communities placed on pension contributions. The cap is 3% and most people opt out of the pension contribution as a result. In many ways, the Department operates in a way it would not do if it were giving these contracts to private concerns. In the way it operates with the community sector, there is a serious lack of respect. It is not always about funding; it is also about respect and resources. They do not come in bucketfuls at all.

Frances Black (Independent)
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I just have a couple of other questions. It is about getting heard. Obviously, the witnesses have expertise in their field. Departments are coming to them looking for that expertise, but then not treating them with the respect they deserve. That is absolutely so important.

Recently, I read that the very first drafts of the South African bill of rights were written in Dublin by lawyers of the African National Congress who were living in exile. It is amazing that such a historic and transformative document began its life here. This underscores the lack of progress, North and South, in the production of our own bills of rights. Do the witnesses think we need to recentre this as a political goal? It is absolutely vital we get the bill of rights up and running. What impact could it have on life in general on this island of Ireland? Can the witnesses speak a bit in this regard? Ms Eileen Weir spoke a good deal about the importance of a bill of rights when she was before this committee a couple of weeks ago. Maybe the witnesses can comment on this matter also.

Ms Helen Crickard:

Absolutely. Ms Crory will probably come in more on this issue. It is absolutely critical, as are all of the social inclusion strategies. Without them, you are just waiting about in darkness because there is no strategy or policy there to guide us or to hold people to account. The bill of rights is absolutely vital in terms of working life and in the cultural, social, education and health aspects. It straddles them all. It is vital.

Ms Elaine Crory:

I completely agree. The bill of rights is like a building block upon which a rights-based society is going to be built. We do not have a good public conversation around rights and what they are. Rights are almost used in public narratives like a cudgel, such as a person claiming it is his or her right to do X and this conflicts with another person's right to do Y. As a result, they are going to have a bit of an argument about it. As opposed to talking about human rights, we are talking about the rights of particular communities. In the North, that always means the two communities, although there are many more. That is the narrative.

This is made worse by the fact that, as has been pointed out, we really need the bill of rights to come from Stormont and to be signed off by Westminster, but there is no drive in either of them. While there has been some work done at Stormont level in this regard, it was not fully in a collective or shared way. Many of the large unionist parties will not participate or sign it off, which means that it will not get to the Secretary of State.

Additionally, there is a negative narrative around rights in general coming from the UK Government in recent years. There is talk of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. There is much talk of rights as a barrier and a thing which holds the process of government down, as opposed to a tool or a key that unlocks improvements in people's lives. That is a problem we face as well. There is no impetuous coming from the Secretary of State that might coax Stormont along a bit. While the work that went on in the last mandate to produce a draft bill of rights was very good, unless we can get around that conversation about what rights are and how they are really tools towards freedom and the thriving of every community and every person, then we will not get that sign-on from unionist parties, especially if there is no impetuous from Westminster. That may or may not change in a couple of weeks, but there certainly is no positive talk about bills of rights coming from that direction either.

Frances Black (Independent)
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I have one more question. We all know that social media abuse is endemic at the moment. Women, LGBT people, migrants and ethnic minorities are always singled out for the worst treatment, particularly those who may be involved in politics. It can get very bad. How do we encourage diversity in public life, including in discussions about constitutional change in this environment? What are the witnesses thoughts on the ways we can encourage more people to become more engaged? It is very difficult and we see it all the time. I am wondering what the witnesses thoughts are in this regard.

Ms Elaine Crory:

I totally agree that the level of abuse minoritised people, including women, face is off the charts. Sometimes, talking about the constitutional future of this place, one way or the other, and that includes unionists, requires stepping a little outside your comfort zone. That is already bad enough without adding on top the abuse women get. Women politicians in Northern Ireland, women candidates who do not go on to be politicians because maybe they do not get elected, women speaking about politics generally, from journalists and commentators to members of the public who are more visible, and people in our own sector receive a shocking level of abuse. There are two MLAs in Northern Ireland to whom some things happened tin the run-up to the last assembly election. There were deepfakes of their faces inserted into pornographic videos. These are really shocking things. There have been some meetings and discussions in this regard. The PSNI and the Electoral Commission in the North are doing some work around helping candidates in the upcoming elections, which take place next week, on this issue. Ultimately, however, it comes down to what social media allows and encourages. That is a far bigger issue. We have a much more patriarchal society in the North than in the South, even though there is plenty of patriarchy present in the South and elsewhere. We have a further journey to make. Social media and the encouragement of anonymity or relative anonymity is genuinely opening the doors to some really ugly things.

Last year the Online Safety Act was passed in Westminster because control over media and social media is not devolved to Stormont. By the time it went from being a draft Bill to a Bill to an Act, it was already out of date because of the speed at which social media moves. This is not to criticise the nature of what people were trying to do. It also puts quite a burden on social media companies which, as we know, do as they wish. We have seen them sell our information and remove all kinds of community safety mechanisms that might have been in place under previous Administrations. Twitter, or X, has done this. It is effectively impossible to monitor in real time. Having better conversations about what is causing the escalation of abuse towards minority peoples would not be a solution but it would be a move in the right direction. All of this misogyny, ableism and racism festering under the surface of our society comes out online in its ugliest form but it is there all the time. What can we do about this? It is not an easy question to answer and it is years in the making.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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With regard to Ms Crory's concluding comments and the comments of Senator Black on the deplorable abuse of people on social media, if we had adequate legislation that was robust enough I would not care where it came from. We need it internationally. We need it in every jurisdiction. There is the attitude of the social media companies and platforms and their lack of regard in not reacting in good time to take down the vile posts that are put up.

It is always difficult to encourage young people into politics regardless of where we are. It is always difficult to encourage more women into politics. Social media now is making it that much more difficult. Ms Crory mentioned an incident that occurred prior to the previous assembly election with regard to two female candidates. I read about it at the time. How evil those posts were is beyond description. It is a terrible cancer in society. It is deplorable and we all share Ms Crory's view that we need robust and strong legislation and regulations everywhere, which are not only on the Statute Book but are implemented every living hour. They need to be because so much damage is being done.

I sincerely thank Ms Crickard and Ms Crory for their contributions this morning. They have presented a very clear picture on many important issues that need to be addressed and how some of the mechanisms that should be working on behalf of communities, individuals and families are dysfunctional and it is not good enough. We need proper supports for organisations such as Reclaim the Agenda, which provide services to people that should be provided by the State directly but are not. I compliment them on their work and their contributions this morning. They have very much given us all food for thought. I hope in future they will have another opportunity to come before the committee to inform our deliberations. This has been a very informative session.