Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a few points in the short time available. This Bill, which I fully support, was introduced by Solidarity Deputies. It was submitted for debate during the recent very controversial rape trial in Belfast. It has a bearing on the debate that has surrounded the trial, in particular in the attitude displayed in text messages between the young men involved. Apart from the misogyny displayed, the messages also showed an idiotic, juvenile schoolboy attitude to sex and the worst aspects of so-called laddish culture. For many, the trial raised the need for a serious approach to combatting that culture. Objective, fact-based relationships and sex education programmes in schools will have a key role to play in that regard. I take on board the points Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan made, but I do not think the programmes are consistently applied across the national school system. If we continue with the existing relationships and sexuality education, RSE, approach we are not being serious. An approach to sex education based on the idea that sex is only for married men and women would be considered by teenagers in this country as a joke, something that is not meant to be taken seriously.

Relationships and sex education needs to deal with the realities of the modern world where young people engage in sexual activity. They do not need any hang-ups about it, just a healthy, informed attitude that includes knowledge about contraception, protection against STDs and options for crisis pregnancies. They need to know about grooming, what consent is and is not, what sort of behaviours are acceptable and what they can do about them. They need to know that there are many different types of relationship, genders and families and that all are equally acceptable. The only relationships that are not acceptable are those based on force and domination. Every child should be able to come forward if they are in that situation.

Teachers who work in schools with a religious ethos are employed by the Department of Education and Skills. The Bill would and could take the chill effect out of the 1998 legislation on upholding the ethos of a school. The Department must stop failing young people, parents and teachers and devise a curriculum for the provision of objective sex education in schools.

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