Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Sex education as taught in schools is inadequate and not for purpose. As the examples given by Deputy Paul Murphy indicate, in many cases, it is a sick joke. The time has come for change, which is being demanded by young people all over the country. Solidarity has put the Bill forward, but young people are driving it. We saw this in the protests on the streets in towns around the country less than two weeks ago. People stood behind banners saying they stood with the woman in Belfast. They demanded that people be educated about consent. It is a protest movement that has put the matter on the agenda and it should be registered in this discussion.

The same sort of young people were in the National University of Ireland, Galway, last summer, attended consent workshops and conducted a consent survey. More than 1,000 people took part. The results of the survey indicated that nobody had received formal education at school about consent. More than three in four people, or 76%, said the sex education they had received at school left out "a lot of crucial and important information".

Young people are demanding to learn about relationships. This week we were told that 19,000 disclosures of domestic abuse against women and kids had been made to Women's Aid last year. From where do the ideas that lead to such abuse come? In the United Kingdom one in four teenagers has experienced abuse in a relationship. What is the story here? We do not know because there have been no surveys carried out. There are no data available. That is why we need relationships education in schools.

What about the child from the LGBTQ+ background sitting in a school where its ethos means that there is no education about LGTBQ+ sexuality or relationships? What is the message being sent if people are invisible? Itis that they do not count. Young people are not going to stand for that. All young people are opposed to that type of discrimination, standing up and speaking out against it. The Minister said we needed factual education in schools. That is very good. He also said we had to respect ethos and that he was going to have a review carried out. However, there will not be factual sexuality and relationships education in schools unless the question of ethos is tackled. That does not mean that religious orders cannot teach their views in religion class. However, they cannot block factual objective education in schools. If geography was taught in a school and there was nothing about Spain, Germany or Latin America, it would not be a very good class. The same applies to sex education. It is not unconstitutional. Article 43.3.2° reads:

The State shall, however, as guardian of the common good, require in view of actual conditions that the children receive a certain minimum education, moral, intellectual and social.

We need to separate Church and State. We need State-funded education controlled by the State, not by religious orders. We can now say the ethos of a school cannot obstruct factual education as it is not unconstitutional. We will go on to separate Church and State because clearly that is what is needed. There is an old saying in the Labour movement which is applicable to this debate - "Which side are you on?" On one side of this debate we have Rape Crisis Network Ireland, the Irish Family Planning Association, the National Women's Council of Ireland, every students' union in the country-----

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