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

Hateful, divisive, manufactured so-called debate has now been imported to this country from the US and the UK. Two weeks of targeted abuse of the LGBT community in general, and the transgender community in particular, has been the result. Shamefully, the national broadcaster has been central to the whole thing.

We have heard a lot about the freedom to discuss in the past two weeks and I am going to make a point about that when I ask my next question. However, in reality, RTÉ, "Liveline" and the corporate media more generally have covered up the fact that the four people who were excluded from the National Women's Council event had announced by way of press release in advance that their intention was to disrupt the event and to do so by targeting a trans person for hostile criticism.

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media has let RTÉ off the hook by cancelling the invitation to a meeting tomorrow. RTÉ might have faced some interesting questions at that meeting on its suppression of the facts surrounding this case. Will the Minister agree that the invitation should be reissued?

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