John Lyons (Dublin North West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on this issue which is one that needs to be resolved as quickly as possible. I genuinely thank the Opposition Members who tabled this Private Member's Bill which gives us the opportunity to speak about the issue in the House. Lots of work is being done to advance this issue outside of this Chamber by the Minister of State and others. In 2013 when Deputy Ó Ríordáin was still a backbencher he worked with me and other colleagues to put together a Private Member's Bill which has been advanced to Second Stage in the Seanad. The Government's preferred option to address the issues raised by section 37(1) of the Employment Equality Act is to do so through the Bill that myself and a number of my Labour Party colleagues put forward and to make a number of amendments thereto which will ensure that it is robust and correct.

Clearly, the Act was originally drafted with the best of intentions and the aim was to strike a balance but as we found out, the protection of rights was not really working. I saw this at first hand.

Deputy Coppinger and I trained as teachers at the same time and place. Little did we both know that we would end up here and little did she know that I would be complimenting her tonight.

One of the stories that came to my mind to do with real people who feel the real life effect of what we are discussing is that of Margaret and Róisín, who are two married primary school teachers. They are civil partners under Irish law and will remain so until that legislation advances later in the year. They were married in Canada. The Minister of State and I were with them at the launch of Teachers for Marriage. They have two lovely children, a boy aged about five and a girl aged about three, whose names I cannot remember. It was very brave of them to come to the launch of Teachers for Marriage.

They told a lovely story. While one of the mothers was upstairs washing one child, she overheard the three-year old playing with her friend and talking. Her friend said to the daughter, "You have two mammies". The daughter said, "I don't have two mammies". No more than anybody else who was sitting in the room, I was wondering what on earth the next part of the story was. She said something lovely. She said, "I have a mammy and I have a momma". I thought it was lovely and it said something about where society is at for most of us.

I bumped into Margaret and Róisín later that day after the event in Dublin Castle and I also bumped into them at the count. The resounding thing I remembered from the conversation was that they were delighted with the result of the referendum. They said that it allowed them to go home and tell their children that they are a real family. It is a shame as I do not know if Margaret and Róisín feel comfortable talking about their real family when they are in the staffroom. I definitely know of many people, including close friends, who feel they cannot talk about their own life in the staffroom. It is not because they work in a bad school which might do something. It is the unknown fear because of the existing legislation which creates a what-if situation. It is a shame that things are that way.

I am sure my partner will strangle me for saying this. I will be appearing on television in the next couple of days. The producers asked if I minded sending in a photograph of me and Darragh. I knew he would not be up for it, but I checked just in case he changed his mind since the last time I spoke to him about such issues because he is a secondary school teacher. Although he is in quite a progressive school, that chill factor exists for him and it is a shame. We know society has moved on. The Irish people came out in gigantic numbers to endorse the type of Ireland that I think we actually have, but it got endorsed in a massive public vote on 22 May.

I want to keep it simple and do not want to go on longer than I should. I genuinely believe that no person should ever live their life in the shadow of society, whether that be at home, in their community as they walk about or in the workplace, including in the staffroom for many of the people we are talking about tonight, at the nurses' station in the Mater Hospital, in a nursing home or anywhere else. That fear of being oneself should never be there. Most people are brave enough to overcome that.

In my case in the staffroom I worked at St. Vincent's school in Glasnevin I revealed myself little by little over 11 years. That is the type of person I am. I realised the world did not fall in and I was not sacked. I know that not everybody feels like that. Nobody should feel that they should step out of their comfort zone in order to be the maverick. We do not need to be mavericks, we just need legislation that protects people and allows them to be themselves.

I appreciate the opportunity to say what I did and to have the conversation. While we all differ on certain things, we all agree on one thing here, which is that everyone should have the right to be themselves and be protected under the law. Nobody should be discriminated against.

My own Bill addressed the issue slightly differently than this Bill. It looked at respecting the balance between the constitutional protection of the freedom of religion - regardless of whether we like it, many schools are run by religious groups - and at the same time allowing the individual to be completely protected in those situations. I will support whatever solution gets us to that. I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight. Most importantly we need to get this done as fast as possible. We have waited far too long. I know amendments may need to be made and I understand that things take time. Having been a Deputy for the past four years I have seen that the wheels of power move slowly, but things change, as we have seen. We saw a dramatic change in May. It is always for the better when it happens. I am sure we will get it right and I look forward to the amendments being made soon. I thank the Opposition Members for creating the opportunity to have this conversation. The people outside, who are affected by it, will greatly appreciate that light is being shone on this issue.

See this speech in context