Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the legislation. Years ago some Members made the mistake of empowering the Roman Catholic Church to discriminate against LGBT teachers. Mervyn Taylor was the Minister for Equality and Law Reform at the time in the rainbow coalition Government. I am delighted years later to vote with the Minister of State to repeal that clearly discriminatory provision against LGBT teachers.

Ireland is at the crossroads. Our economy is booming, we are in a European Union, we embrace the free flow of labour throughout the Union and we have an obligation to, and a policy of, attracting international workers to take up employment and, hopefully, rear their families here. We have also prided ourselves over the past four of five years in holding large citizenship ceremonies. Anybody who has taken the time to attend such a ceremony will have noticed the pleasure and joy of those who have become citizens, having come here from as many as 120 different countries, and the cultural and racial composition of those who happily become Irish. They are Chinese, Mongolians and north, south and central African. They are Buddhists, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, atheists while many in the African community are of an evangelical Protestant tradition. We are part of Europe attracting international workers who want to build their family lives in Ireland. Approximately 50,000 of them have become citizens and they are of such diversity that it is difficult to even comprehend in such a short time.

The question we must ask ourselves is how do we as a State, which is proud of its citizenship ceremonies, handle the educational needs of their children? That issue will not be resolved tonight. I take a slightly different position from most of the previous speakers, which is not anti-Catholic. I am a secularist and I believe in the notion of a secular state and the state being secular by acting like a grandfather or a loving father and mother to every child born in it, no matter what cultural or religious background they come from. There is an obligation on the State to applaud and to encourage these children to grow in our multicultural society. I have pointed out previously that we are a small island. There are cultural divisions in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants - those with loyalty to England and those with loyalty to the Republic. As a result, 3,000 died partly through conflict.

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