Laura Dowling

I welcome that.

I think that's great.

But where I'm from in the west of Ireland, someone from the north end of Donegal has to drive to Galway.

What we know economically and the big buzzword in Brussels right now among many of the institutions is competitiveness, rightly so, given where we are geopolitically.

But if you look at the German economy, every year, about 9 billion, 9.2, 9.4 billion gets taken out of the German economy every year because women experience menopausal crises or challenges step out of the workforce.

So if we're actually going to address the causes, then you need to start at the root and that's funding and research.

And you know it in your profession and your expertise.

When my team and I started doing a lot of work on menopausal care, or we call the M's, so menstrual, maternal, menopausal, mental health.

And in any of those facets, particularly now with menopause work that we're really trying to shift in parliament, like the amount of women that have come to say, I just wasn't believed.

I wasn't believed.

Like that's... Like for years going to your GP and do I lay shame on the GP's feet?

No.

In many cases because A, that's societal or research isn't there or they're trying to do their best in the 50 minute window that they have or a woman is not coming or did go to the GP and felt...

that she wasn't being heard and then just step back and went back into different care and responsibility.

It's a vicious cycle.

And then how do you change that?

I mean, to your point around research and funding and actually making it a political... I often really think like we're 51% of the population.

We have the purchasing power.

So...

Society has created fashion magazines, luxury and fast fashion stores and brands for women to buy into.