Ms Simonetta Ryan:

Head 17 provides for the right of appeal by a person whose application has been refused, head 18 provides for the correction of the content of a gender recognition certificate, while head 19 provides for the revocation by the Minister of a gender recognition certificate if the person did not meet the qualification criteria at the time. Head 20 makes it an offence to knowingly provide false information. As I said earlier, formal recognition is for all State purposes. A number of these heads could be described as fail-safe heads, to provide for contingencies that may arise. Head 21 deals with parenthood and provides that a change in a person's recognised gender shall not change the responsibilities of that person as a parent. Heads 22 to 24 deal with matters of succession, trustees and personal representatives. I will not go into detail on those now. Head 25 provides for gender specific criminal offences and provides that a person can be prosecuted, if it arises, for sexual offences specific to their original gender, committed post-recognition or the other way around, pre-recognition. Head 26 covers participation in sporting activities.

The general scheme of the Bill does not include specific provisions relating to equality for transgender persons as discrimination on the basis of transgender is already prohibited on the gender ground under the existing legislation. However, we have been liaising with the Department of Justice and Equality and the Office of the Attorney General to determine whether the equality legislation should be amended to explicitly prohibit discrimination against a transgender or intersex person.