Stormont paying 'lip service' on women's issues

"I think we've seen lots of photo ops but not very much delivery, a lot of it is lip service."

Take women from different backgrounds and groups, put them in a room and ask the question: Is the assembly delivering for you?

Nine times out of 10 the answer will be the same - no.

It's been more than a year since power-sharing returned and days since the executive published its programme for government, with promises on ending violence against women and girls and improving access to childcare.

But while policy and campaign groups have welcomed those commitments, they have said it doesn't go anywhere near far enough.

At the Shankill Shared Women's Centre in west Belfast on Wednesday, the Women's Policy Group for NI brought about 40 women together to rank the assembly's achievements - or lack of - in the past 12 months.

The executive has published a strategy on ending violence against women and girls and implemented a subsidy scheme for childcare and have said they would do more if they had greater financial firepower.

But Sophie Nelson from HERe NI, which represents LGBTQIA+ women, criticised what she called "lip service" being paid by politicians on women's issues.

"I appreciate it's difficult and I have sympathy with them in terms of trying to get laws progressed in the executive, but we need to see real action in the next two years," she told BBC News NI.

"I know from the LGBTQIA+ women I work with, their needs are not being delivered on and there is no mention of this in the programme for government, which we're really saddened to see."

Katy Allen from Act Now NI said she would only score the executive "four out of 10" for its performance in the past year.

"There are such important things facing women in Northern Ireland, not just violence against women and girls or the lack of childcare, but general societal attitudes," she added.

"There's been no real effort to make meaningful change or to hold people to account."

Siobhan Harding works for the Women's Support Network and spoke of many women feeling like they had been "forgotten by Stormont", particularly those from less well off backgrounds.

She said while Stormont had made some progress around welfare mitigations, other areas remain a weak point.

"There are still significant gaps, we wanted to see more of a priority being put on addressing poverty - women are the shock absorbers of poverty in the home," she added.

"That's very much what we're hearing in our research with local women, we're disappointed that's not stronger in the programme for government."

Catriona Goldhammer, who attended Wednesday's event, said she felt having more women in politics was important for getting women's issues onto the political agenda.

"You can see they are going in the right direction and beginning to put women's issues at the front but we have steps to go," she added.

And ahead of international women's day this weekend, she said activism is the key to persuading politicians to do more.

"This is exactly what this sort of thing is - the more women we get together in spaces like this, the more power we have and the more our voices are hopefully heard."