Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is a privilege to speak on this Bill. While preparing my contribution, I thought of Nuala Ward, a person in Galway whom I know quite well. Nuala and two heterosexual friends organised the first Galway Pride parade in 1989. The first parade, which proceeded from Eyre Square to the quays, consisted of two lesbians, two gay men who were on holidays in Galway and ten straight people. I remember Nuala telling me that she was so terrified that she shook while on the parade and continued to shake with worry when she and her friends returned to work. I find it difficult to imagine the courage her actions took at the time, especially as she had been attacked, physically beaten and shouted at as a result of being publicly open about who she was. To this day, she remains a proud Galwegian, citizen of Ireland and lesbian.

When I think of what she and her friends went through I recall, for example, that no one would rent them a room to set up a Galway helpline or hold a disco or party and not one business was prepared to sponsor Gay Pride. Last August, when we launched the Galway Pride Festival, as it has become known, Monroe's was packed to the brim, the event had secured sponsorship and the public parade along Shop Street was enormous. These changes took place in a very short period because Nuala Ward and people like her were not afraid despite having genuine reason to be afraid and showed courage and a pioneering spirit in creating the space that brought us to where we are today.

Speaking of that, I was thinking of my own time when I first went to college in NUI Galway. I started college in 2000 and mine was the first age group where it was kind of okay to be gay. Maybe it was because of the group I hung around with - the crazy lefties or socialists - but it was okay to be gay, albeit still something that was a bit different and a little odd. One was cool by being tolerant, however. I thought then of a friend of mine who, terribly, has passed away in the past year. He was a very active Labour Party member and a very proud gay man who went to college ten years previously. He would have started in 1990 and they had a very difficult time. He came from a very rural part of Ireland in the midlands and Border area and the only way to describe it is to say that he fled from his home. He fled from the rural town he came from and never went back. He hated it in one way. While he loved his family and friends, he hated where he had come from because of the lack of acceptance and the fact that he could not be who he was in that part of the world. He sought sanctuary and found it, I think, in Galway, which always had a little bit more of an open-minded spirit. That was my college experience and his college experience.

During the marriage equality referendum, we had the privilege of hosting a very well-attended meeting in Galway at which the then president of the USI, Laura Harmon, who I see in the Visitors Gallery, was present. She was an openly gay woman who had been elected by the students of Ireland as their president. Those three stories, each about ten years apart, show just how far we have come and the courage, passion, struggle and strife of those who had made that possible. It is something that can inspire. One does not get that feeling often in politics. It is not something one feels where one gets a tingle on one's skin and it would be positive if we could use that energy for the many things that we need to continue on to do.

This is a good day and I commend the Minister on the speed with which she has brought the Bill forward. It is a commitment she made and that we will soon see enacted whereby we can vindicate all those who have struggled. However, let us not look back with rose-tinted glasses or assume the struggle is done. Whether we like to accept it or not, there is still a huge amount of homophobia in this country. There is still a very difficult situation for those who are transgender, something with which people are staring to grapple. While we may be ahead of the curve with our legislation, the public mindset still needs to catch up. If one is bisexual, for instance, it is still a bit more difficult than it is if one is identifying as either gay or lesbian. If one is in a gender fluid or transgender position, we still have a long way to go. Let us not forget some of the horrible rhetoric and accusations we had to put up with about families being broken up and people being incapable of raising children or being substandard parents. This sort of thing still exists and we cannot just rest on our laurels. We still have a major fight to ensure the generation coming up will never have to worry about any of this again. Being gay will be like having blue eyes or red hair or something else that does not matter. It is who one is. People can be proud to be who they are because that is what being is all about. That is what the rights approach entails. It is viewing people and respecting them for the human dignity and human being they are and giving them opportunities regardless of their background, sexual orientation or gender. It is about all those fights we have fought through the years and progressing one bit further in order that we respect and love people as citizens and persons, regardless of sexual orientation.

There have been pioneering people who have always fought for this spirit of change. One can go back to the suffragettes and those who fought for equal pay, the right to use contraceptives and for divorce, including some of my own colleagues. I think in particular of my predecessor in my constituency, President Michael D. Higgins, who fought against torrential abuse in what was considered then quite a conservative part of the country. People protested outside his house and picked on his family because of his positions on family rights and the ability of people to choose what they wanted to do. There is still a long way for us to go. We amended our Constitution to allow people to marry without distinction as to their sex. However, our Constitution, which has given us some very good things, including the House which it created and which has passed the test of time, still has a number of things in it which are outdated. We still have the position of women defined as being in the home. We still have a position which prevents us having an integrated education system by having the patron system. That needs to be looked at. We still have things on the table, such as blasphemy, which are not required in a modern, free speech society. There are a number of things we can do.

If I were to ask anybody who was involved in the campaign, they would say that what the political process did was set it up and get it going. I point out, and this is a slightly partisan point, that we were derided at the 2011 election when we said we would put same-sex marriage in our manifesto. It was derided as the Labour Party going after the pink vote as opposed to it being a matter of the Labour Party championing, yet again, another issue close to the hearts of those outside the political system. If we are to use it for something, let us try to take that approach to more issues. We still have a huge way to go in terms of equality if we are talking about giving people from disadvantaged backgrounds a chance. We are not there on women's rights and women's equality. We are not there on full representation in the House. We are not there on the proper distribution of wealth so that no child is hungry and people have decent housing and a decent standard of living. We still have a way to go on all those issues and must come from the same heart and spirit in dealing with them. We should come from the same heart and spirit in dealing with equality. Equality is best exposed when it is not there and when someone is denied something because of who they are. They are denied it and prejudiced and excluded. We see that in the economic sphere as much as we see it in the social sphere to this day. That is why we need to ensure we continue to progress and fight on and never rest on our laurels or take solace.

The ultimate goal of the political system must be to challenge itself and to change, to seek constantly to improve the capacity of people to participate on an equal footing in society as citizens who, as members of a republic, have their right to enjoy their individual worth, regardless of where they come from and who they are, and respected at all times. The Bill is another small step along that way. We have further to go and many ways we can do it. The referendum showed that the Irish people have a spirit that is based on inclusiveness and that they can be trusted with big decisions and to do the right thing when given the information. Above all, it showed that the Irish people believe in fairness and live and let live in the best possible sense of that phrase. Live and let live, love one's neighbour, love those around you and create that space where we can all flourish, thrive and live together in harmony and create a better country.

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