Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I accept and understand that people are concerned about the experience of transgender children in schools. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think this is why these amendments have been proposed. Issues regarding school admission policies are a matter for the Minister for Education and Skills and we discussed this earlier.

The Deputy proposes that I introduce an interim gender recognition certificate for children of any age and the purpose behind that is essentially aimed at school admissions. This is a very complicated approach to the problem. Even if I was responsible for schools, I do not believe the amendment would be workable. Significant related work would need to be done. There is no provision in the amendment, for example, in regard to whether the interim certificate should be used after the age of 18. The amendment is a recipe for confusion in many ways. This goes back to the lack of quantitative research on this area and we talked about this at length earlier. While I understand where the Deputy is coming from on this, I am not in a position to accept her amendment. There is significant work to be done and information to be gathered on the transgender issue and it is not appropriate to deal with the issue at this stage in this Bill. However, I accept the Deputy's genuine intention.