Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a few comments. First, the changes to section 37 are welcome. While the wording is not ideal, I understand there is a limit because of the directive and consequently, it was not as open to change as perhaps would have been desired. Nevertheless, this legislation is moving Members along from a previous position and in many ways, the public has been ahead of the Oireachtas on many of these topics. Most people would find reprehensible the idea that one could be discriminated against on the basis of some of the grounds outlined here. This is a very positive development.

One issue that is not included in this Bill concerns access to schools for children who do not have baptismal certificates in a system in which 95% of schools are under Roman Catholic patronage. Honesty is a value one should be fostering among people and asking people to be dishonest simply to get their children into school is in conflict with such patronage and its values, which I find to be very odd. I am not religious myself and would describe myself perhaps as a humanist or an agnostic or something like that but in common with others like myself, this does not stop us from having values that are fairly honourable in terms of telling the truth and so on. The idea that one must have a religious moral standard of some sort is different to the reality of contemporary Ireland.

To revert to the Bill, it is difficult to get one's head around the idea that gay people, divorced parents, unmarried parents or a woman who has had an abortion all offered potential grounds for being technically dismissed, particularly from organisations that preach tolerance. I suspect many of the institutions will be pleased to see this change and I do not believe Members necessarily are grating against them. Moreover, it is important that one works towards changing things progressively. On the area pertaining to refusing people a home on the basis of the rent allowance, while we have many laws in Ireland their enforcement becomes problematic. I worry about people as the first thing that will be on someone's mind will be to try to get a place anywhere. When one begins to consider the organs of the State, such as for example the Private Residential Tenancies Board, it is overwhelmed at present and one must question how effective it will be in the short term. I suspect people will keep on ploughing ahead to try to find alternative accommodation and will not make the complaints. For example, I am starting to see changes in the way in which accommodation is being advertised.

I am not opposed to this being included but I want it to be included in a way that is meaningful and can bring about a change in culture and practice. We are now seeing in advertisements requests for work references and so on, which in many ways is shifting the dynamic of the refusal. We need to be careful about that to ensure it does not prevent us getting to the point we are trying to get to. The key issue for me is how this is going to be enforced.

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