Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I want to start by saluting and celebrating the campaigners in the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network for how they took the stand that they took. I note that one of them, Senator Norris, is here. The reality is that such reforms were not won by the great and good of the political elite. The political elite and the establishment often stood in the teeth of opposition to prevent progress for LGBT+ people. They showed apathy, indifference and sometimes derision and hostility in the face of demands for homosexual law reform.

I do not think we are here to celebrate what a great little country Ireland is in which to be gay or transgender. The battle for these rights has not ended and cannot end. According to a report that was written last year, some 56% of LGBT+ teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18 say they have self-harmed and 70% of them say they have seriously thought about ending their own lives. The report shows that school continues to be a difficult place for many young LGBT+ people. Just one in five of them believe they belong completely in their schools. Less than half of them feel they have received positive affirmation of their identity in our society. The report also shows that LGBT+ people continue to experience victimisation and harassment in their day-to-day lives. Three quarters of them have been verbally abused and almost one third of them have experienced abuse in the past year. Just one in three of them would feel safe showing affection to a partner in public. Some 15% of them said they would never hold hands in public. One in three LGBT+ people have been threatened with physical violence to their sexual identity, and one in five of them have had hurtful things written about them on social media.

This cannot be a great country for the LGBT+ community, given that sex education in our schools is overwhelmingly based on one ethos and the great liberals of Fine Gael etc. have blocked a Bill that would ensure we get fact-based non-ethos sex education. When young people hear during sex education that it is perfectly normal to be gay and to be attracted to a member of the same sex, we will have gone a long way towards heading off the psychological damage that the current system is doing to young people in our society. As that system is often based on church denomination and domination of our schools, it imbues in young LGBT+ people a sense that they are less than normal.

It cannot be a great little country for people in the LGBT+ community given that we are still dragging our feet on the enactment of the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 and, as a consequence, heterosexual and homosexual couples do not have the same rights in relation to their children. I remind the Minister, Deputy Zappone, that it was supposed to be enacted last year. We were meant to have it within a year of the marriage equality referendum being passed. The failure to enact this legislation means that the partners of women like Fiona Armstrong Astley are unable to register as a parent to their children. This means they cannot get a passport for their children without, in effect, denying them joint parentage.

Before we congratulate ourselves on how modern and wonderful we are, we should remember those who cannot afford to get the PrEP drug which prevents AIDS over the Internet, those who cannot access mental health services when they need them, those who are struggling with their sexuality in faith-based schools where being gay, bisexual or transgender is seen as less than normal and those who cannot register the birth of their children to get passports for them as a result of our failure to enact the necessary legislation. While I celebrate and salute those who struggled down through the decades in very difficult circumstances and against the odds, we need to celebrate with a certain note of caution and in anticipation of the further changes that are needed.

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