Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

To be honest, this Bill came to prominence and into most people's awareness because the word "woman" was initially to be deleted from the Bill. Therefore, this legislation comes with that provenance now in most people's minds, if the truth is told.

Regarding that debate, I spoke to several Deputies from Fine Gael concerning this aspect. They said they agreed with Graham Linehan and other views on this subject but that they were too afraid to talk about these issues openly. I spoke to other Members of the Oireachtas from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and they also energetically agreed, but were afraid to speak on these issues. We have a situation where people are being treated atrociously if they speak up. JK Rowling has received endless rape and death threats because she has spoken up. It was right that the world rallied around Salman Rushdie when he received death threats. Many people who stood with him in that situation, however, were silent when it came to the case of JK Rowling.

We need a rational and respectful debate on this issue. For this to happen, though, people will need to have licence to have the ability to speak up on this issue. Censorship is really damaging to democracy and this is what is happening here. Democracy is about the competition of ideas. We should allow for those ideas to compete with each other respectfully and then allow citizens to choose what is the best path for this country to take.

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