Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish everyone all the very best for Saturday and the Pride march in Dublin. It is something that many of us look forward to for the energy and fun, while we also recognise the serious message of the day concerning LGBTQI+ rights. I can remember my first Pride march in the early 1990s, leaving the Garden of Remembrance with my two children, Seán and Kerrie, who were in a double pram. We headed down O'Connell Street, determined to make the point that LGBTQI+ rights are human rights and that we all needed to show our solidarity and support for the community.

I come from the north inner city. I played Gaelic football, walked our dog and played with my mates in Fairview Park throughout the 1970s and the 1980s. We were fed homophobic lies that gay men in the park were paedophiles and child molesters. We believed our elders and the lies being fed to us by a society that viewed the LGBTQI+ community as criminals and dangerous people. We all lived through the horrendous experience when Declan Flynn was murdered in Fairview Park. Things have changed. I was only talking at the weekend with friends of mine about how bizarre it is that the legislation to repeal that it was a criminal offence to be gay was only introduced in the 1990s. When we think back and have those conversations now, we realise how bizarre that was.

I was with friends of mine, both New Yorkers, who said that Ireland is seen as a place that is welcoming for the LGBTQI+ community. They saw from the US how amazing it was that Ireland was the first country in the world to legalise gay marriage in a referendum through a popular vote. However, we cannot but be worried about the kickback from those who oppose those rights. The same language I heard as a young man in the north inner city about gay men is what I now hear about the transgender community. We have the demonisation of the transgender community and protests at libraries about books promoting appropriate sexual health information. Interestingly, that is a tactic imported from the Trump MAGA Christian fundamentalist right in America.

Where does this language lead us? It leads us to violence against the LGBTQI+ community. In 2022, there was a 29% increase in reported hate crimes, and 22% of those were in relation to sexual orientation. Some 18% of young people reported that they experienced discrimination over the previous two years; some 33.2% of whom were persons identifying as LGBTQI+. We see people from the LGBTQI+ community regularly being subjected to violence on our streets. While we have made great strides as a society in relation to LGBTQI+ rights, we cannot and must not become complacent.

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