It is timely that the young women in the Gallery are here. I wish them a céad míle fáilte. It just feels a little bit late for me as it is ten days after International Women's Day. I know it is to do with the schedule but it kind of reflects women's place. All the recent research that has come out in the last week and our own research from the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Women's Aid and international research is quite alarming in that it sees that Gen Z men - those born between 1997 and 2012 - have, alarmingly, retreated back to the traditional macho roles of masculinity. There is pressure on them to conform to rigid gender stereotypes from influencers like that millionaire misogynist Tate and others we can think of in America. They target young men via social media, as do the pornographic sites which depict violence and sex as the norm. It is an inescapable fact that these influencers and influences foster the manosphere. The manosphere's attitudes coincide with an alarming increase in violence against women. In Ireland in particular we have higher rates than the EU average. Women and girls are easy targets for young men who are angry and look to blame. They state that they have enough of equality, enough of fairness and enough of women being independent. Where did that come from? It is a cultural shift that we must really keep a close eye on to help fight it and to call it out at all times but it must be a community response. There must be community healing and community repair by all of us. I would love to see men here giving International Women's Day speeches because the problem is not us. We need to help spread the idea of where the problem is and what we can do about it. I want to recognise the zero tolerance community-lead action groups opposing violence against women and promoting that community repair. I need to give a shout out to the Liberties community groups that launched the zero tolerance campaign recently, to our Uachtarán Shinn Féin, Mary Lou McDonald, for her leadership on this and the mná of Sinn Féin for creating the first group in Dublin Central.

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