Laura Dowling

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I often joke and shout out to my advisor, Ciara Flynn.

So she joined us as a trainee.

I met her originally.

She was lobbying politicians because in UL, a group of her friends and her set up a period poverty social enterprise called Any Time of the Month.

It's still going strong.

And ultimately, it was how do you eradicate period poverty, how to educate men and women, young and old, around periods and menstrual care?

And then how do we get period product into the likes of detention centres, hotels, schools, community centres, so that it becomes just the norm versus the exception?

And so I often joke every second speech I make has some sort of period poverty or menstrual

I've been at agricultural committee meetings where I'm like, let's talk about period care for our farmers and like people laugh, but it really is an issue, right?

Yeah, it really is.

Female farmers are not recognised as much as they should, but they also experience all the symptoms and the life cycle of any woman.

And ultimately, we have a period poverty strategy coming out the commission.

We're working to see what funding is attached to that.

We're not seeing that quite yet, but my aim is to make sure then that's rolled out in schools.

I recently met Plan Ireland, a great organisation here that has youth delegates who are trying to lobby further politicians to make sure there's a funding stream attached to all form of period care so that regardless of whether you grew up in a

middle class house or a house in a challenged area or you're going to school in a highbrow area or not a highbrow area, whatever it is, that access to period care and support is there and that you're comfortable and have the language of your own agency and also young boys and men understand it too.

Yeah, there's a great organization called Riley.

I'm sure many have heard about it.