Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Before I move on to the substantive point, I must say we were shocked to hear that Fianna Fáil will not support the Bill. Given that the Government is not opposing the Bill, one would have thought at the very least Fianna Fáil would allow the Bill to progress to the next Stage and to amend it if it wants. The excuses made by Fianna Fáil Members are pathetic. Apparently, it is revolutionary and unbelievable to name in a Bill "areas" that can be included in the curriculum and for that reason the party cannot support the Bill. We all know the real reason Fianna Fáil is not supporting the Bill. It is because it does not want to challenge the religious ethos of schools. To say that would be a much more honest way to approach the debate. If they do not support the Bill tomorrow, I ask Fianna Fáil Members to consider where they are placing themselves on the spectrum.

In a European context, to oppose objective sex education is to be utterly backward and reactionary. The Oireachtas committee, on which Fine Fáil had members, recommended that these areas be explored in the curriculum and that it be independent of school ethos. The Bill is exactly in line with what the Citizens' Assembly and the Oireachtas committee recommended. I ask members of Fianna Fáil to consider how they will be viewed if they block the Bill and allow it to fall. The press conference held to launch the Bill was attended by representatives of Rape Crisis Network Ireland, the Irish Family Planning Association, the National Women's Council of Ireland, students' unions, Shout Out and a myriad of groups that have backed the Bill and asked that it be supported. It is further reflected in the fact that the Government has stated it is not going to vote it down.

Some Deputies have said there is a review on the way, but we need to put it in context. Asking members of the NCCA, wonderful as many of them may be, to conduct a review of the curriculum means very little, unless we actually challenge the legal right of schools, enshrined in the Education Act 1998, to use religious ethos as a way to censor or not provide sex education. Otherwise, there is no guarantee that the wonderful curriculum they will draft will actually be taught. I know this because I taught sex education in schools and know exactly what happens. A teacher arrives in September and is handed a timetable for geography, history, maths or whatever else and plonked in it is a thing called RSE or SPHE. No training is provided and no assessment is made to determine whether the teacher's personality makes him or her in any way suited to teaching the subject. If a teacher is provided with one day's in-service training, he or she is doing well. We all know that teachers have their own prejudices and, notwithstanding what was said by Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan, I very much doubt that the sex education being taught in most schools is affirmative of LGBT plus students. We know this because lots of students have written to us about it. The type of sex education taught in schools tends to be about sex between a man and a woman and procreation and reproduction. There are other types of sex that take place in society, but students are not being taught about them.

My key focus is on consent which has become the number one, central issue in Irish society. This was borne out, in particular, in the context of recent rape trials and the highly publicised event at a school where girls' names were written on the walls of a toilet by schoolboys who then rated them as to whether they should be raped. We have a problem. As Dr. Ging from DCU said, a cultural shift in thinking about sexism, sexual abuse and harassment is needed, including in schools. She argued that, with reviewing and updating curricula, we needed to focus on changing practices in schools that might reinforce harmful gender stereotypes and limit development for both boys and girls. According to her, teaching young people about sex should not be viewed as a set of problems to be managed but as an opportunity to empower them as sexual citizens. Such a massive culture shift cannot be achieved solely through a sex education programme, but, obviously, the first place to start is among young people when they are all gathered in schools. Anyone who needs confirmation of the need for a cultural shift only has to look at the toxic masculinity personified in the WhatsApp messages reported in the media. Men and boys are encouraged to be dominant, physical and disregard the needs of women. Women are there only for men's entitlement and pleasure, as we saw graphically in the messages.

Why is it that a defence can be put forward in a trial that, while a person did not say "Yes", he or she did not say "No" either? That is not a defence for a crime of any type other than sexual assault or rape. We have to challenge these dangerous ideas. We know that something is seriously wrong but not because of Government research. The Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland, SAVI, report has been mentioned, but it is outrageous that proper State-funded research has not been carried out in this area since 2002. The Sexual Health and Attitudes Galway study carried out last year is very instructive. It was conducted among 1,691 students at UCG and found that 35% of males thought it was okay for a guy to get carried away and end up forcing a woman to take part in non-consensual sex. That is over one in three young men. The study also found that 37% thought that the way a woman dressed could justify her getting into trouble. These are horrific attitudes that must be tackled. Regardless of the niceties Fianna Fáil believes should be included in a Bill, if its members do not think we have a serious problem, there is something wrong with their party. The SMART workshop on consent that was held in Galway achieved an important change in attitudes. The numbers of people who, having taken part in this very short workshop, felt more informed, understood better what consent meant and felt more comfortable rose from 23% to 65%. It was a non-Government funded workshop. It is not acceptable that students and others have to raise funds to do things for themselves. These workshops should be funded by the State and taking place in schools and colleges. The concept of seeking an enthusiastic "Yes" from somebody, rather than a "No", must be popularised. It will be very difficult to bring this about unless we encourage students to challenge established ideas that, unfortunately, are promoted by some religions.

The concept of the girl as the gatekeeper of sexuality is very strong. According to a piece by Dr. Ging in The Irish Times, lots of boys' schools do not provide any sex education at all. There is a lower compliance rate in boys' schools. Girls are obviously meant to manage and gate-keep sexual activity, but girls and women are entitled to a positive sexuality. They are entitled to be taught that they can receive pleasure from sex, that they do not have to be a passive recipient or ashamed for taking part or wanting to take part in a sexual act. The very simple message we should be teaching young people is that relationships and sexual activity should make them feel good, but if they do not, there is something wrong. That is a very simple but revolutionary idea. Unless we put forward the idea of a positive sexuality and pleasure being part of it, including pleasure as a measure of their consent and an element of sexual activity, young people will not be able to determine their own comfort levels when something takes place.

We must be clear that it is not the Internet that has caused all of this. Obviously, the Internet makes things a lot more complicated, but there were problems with attitudes before the Internet. Men did not look for consent before the Internet and these problems did not suddenly start then. This is not just about tackling the Internet but also about tackling cultural attitudes that go way back in time. Sex education that focuses on reproductive and gender normative intercourse is not going to tackle this, but such education is based on the religious ethos of a lot of schools. None of this change can happen if religious ethos holds sway.

I again appeal to all parties in the Dáil not to block the Bill or prevent it from progressing to the next Stage at least. It is being supported and backed by a host of organisations that will not be pleased if it is blocked for very spurious reasons.

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