*From assembly participants

Still not convinced? here's what some assembly participants have said:

'When citizens assemble’ Film by Patrick Chalmers. Irish CA

‘I was afraid coming the first day. It was 98 people that I’ve never met before...I walked in and met people, kind of similar age and we just got all talking and we were all kind of apprehensive about it but we kind of fell into it quite quickly’ Noeren O’Flynn ( Student: 22)

‘So I would say we probably put a couple of hundred hours of total time into it which is probably more than any parliamentary party committee would have put into it. So we’re probably the best informed amateurs in the country on this topic at the moment.’ John Long (56)

It’s been a very difficult process, I’ll be honest, it hasn’t been a walk in the park...it is not an easy topic...I think as a group, I think we’ve managed to, I suppose, support each other through that.’ Louise Caldwell (Mum of 3, self employed events manager: 39)

‘Unlike other debates that have taken place, in referenda, in the past in Ireland, the CA was very respectful and very congenial to everybody’s opinion. So there were no major arguments or disputes here at the CA.’ John Long

‘...but we found that in some of the sessions we had, we were given legal, medical, we were given ethical, moral, religious, and then social as well, and then the advocacy groups as well, we had all of them too. But I found that first of all, some of the sessions like the legal and the medical were head melting because there was so much information and I am not a lawyer and I’m not a doctor so we didn’t understand half of it. …”How am I going to process this?” But the mechanism that they had set up with the assembly, how it was done, question and answer, roundtable discussions and everything and the presenters of the speeches and that hung around and answered your question and it wasn’t the case that it was a stupid question, it didn’t have to be a stupid question, or it could have been a stupid question, it was answered. But you always felt, at the end of it, you understood what it was they were telling you. David Keogh (truck driver: 47)

‘I wouldn’t say that the process has changed my view terribly much but it has significantly deepened my understanding of the topic...so yeah, my understanding would have increased exponentially.’ Louise Caldwell

‘For myself, personally, I would have been in the middle...I would have been strongly in favour of Ireland liberalising its abortion laws...but as time went on and as we were getting more and more information and as it was totally fact-based, unbiased totally, I saw myself moving, and I think a lot of people actually did here...I was surprised...started moving to a pro-choice position to the extent that we surprised the whole country...that we voted for radically liberalising the abortion laws in Ireland.” John Long

It’s not just a particular type of people and they’ve gone to college and they’ve studied something and they’re all making views in it. You get to hear what the ordinary people, the people that it affects on the ground, how they feel about something. What they would like to change about it and then go about it in a political manner after gaining all of the information.’ Noreen O’Flynn

If you are cynical about your politician’s ability to change legislation, pass legislation or come up with legislation but if there’s an issue that’s burning to your society in general - have an assembly. David Keogh

There just seems to be a political disconnect all over the Western World for the traditional political parties and this isn’t...its a new layer of democracy...you can’t have too much democracy...And democracy should be an expression of the will of the people...we’re an expression of the will of the people. John Long