We read some startling figures in the Belfast Telegraph this week about our female MLA's daily battle with sexism.

70% of them have had sexist remarks made to them in person.

Over a quarter of them say they've been sexually harassed during their political lives.

The paper's political editor, Suzanne Breen, carried out the survey.

Suzanne, did the stories you heard from the 27 female MLAs who took part surprise you?

They weren't surprising, unfortunately.

They should be surprising in the sense that this should have been an issue of the 70s and of the 80s,

but not now in 2020. It's quite shameful that so many women have experienced such serious problems. Of the 27 MLAs that I spoke to, there were only four who had experienced neither, sexual harassment, direct face-to-face sexism remarks,

offensive sexist remarks by men or sexism online, only four out of 27.

And I'm massively grateful to all the MLAs who spoke to me,

who shared their experience and who have brought these horrible experiences out into the light.

And I think that can only help.

There were three MLAs I spoke to in detail about the sexual harassment that they had

experienced and really the incidents were quite shocking.

One MLA had experienced two incidents when she was a counsellor.

There was a male counsellor a lot older than her from a different party

who made unwanted sexual advances to her.

And when she was at her own party conference,

a non-party member, an independent attendee, who was at that conference, had made unwanted sexual advances to her, and she was persistent that it massively shook her up.

She was very unsettled by the whole experience.

There was another Malay spoke to me about being touched by two male councillors on separate

occasions and she said that they had done this in a very jockey way but she was massively

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