James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)

Both of the previous speakers mentioned allies. That is how I come to this debate also. One of the big decisions I made when I was elected as a city councillor in 2019 was that, where possible, I would attend, at the very least, Dublin Pride every single year. To my eternal shame, I never attended Pride before I became a councillor. As a public representative, I felt it important to continue to show allyship. That is why I am here today contributing to this debate. When I was Lord Mayor of Dublin, I had the enormous privilege of marching at the front of the Dublin Pride parade.

One of the amazing things about Pride for those who have not participated – and I encourage anyone to do so in their towns and villages, if they are not based in Dublin - is all of the empathy and kindness there on the day. It is a very human day in a way that is kind of hard to characterise or emulate. It is obviously a day of protest, as our former party leader, Leo Varadkar, used to always remind us. When you actually participate in it, however, you are surrounded by love, fun and a level of positivity that I am not sure is emulated in any other event that takes place across the country.

What struck me in particular on every occasion I have marched in Pride is the young people and their faces. When I think of the kind of Ireland we all live in, a lot of the young people who were at the Pride events I participated in, particularly when I was Lord Mayor, were maybe turning 17 or 18. Therefore, at least for their whole adult life, all they will know is a country that changed its Constitution for the better in the marriage equality referendum.

They are now faced with a new vista, however. There has been a lot of discussion in this Chamber about Hungary and other jurisdictions, but there is no denying that what is taking place across the world is having an impact in Ireland, too. We can be proud of the fact that when surveys are carried out, Ireland is often up there as one of the safest countries in the world for LGBTQ+ people. Equally, however, we know from studies that BeLonG To and Trinity College have done that nearly half of LGBTQ+ people feel unsafe holding hands in public, one in four have been physically attacked and 72% have faced verbal abuse. We know that social media has played a role in this toxicity.

I am often one of these people who is a strong advocate for free speech and will always defend people’s right to speak. We know, however, that the so-called free speech advocates often couch their language in free speech when in fact what they want to do is create a safe space for prejudice to thrive and for it to be okay to have the prejudiced discussions that might have been commonplace decades ago in our country but became quite socially unacceptable in the years after the marriage equality referendum. In some ways, those discussions are returning in an ugly way. More often than not, it is trans people who are particularly targeted. Discussions about trans people are traduced and reduced to triviality when often it is those very same people in their interactions in their daily lives who face way more prejudices and burdens than I as a straight person face or that most of the population faces.

It is just more important now than ever in this country, leaving aside what is taking place outside of this country, for all of us to remember the allyship that existed during the marriage equality referendum and the kinds of conversation that were taking place cross-generationally. Let us not forget those conversations in an era where it has become fashionable to talk about anti-woke. It has become fashionable to, in some ways, move away from a lot of the ideals that led us to the progressive country we now have. You are almost fearful of using the word “progressive”.

We, as Irish people, in our Irish nation and culture, need to promote what is Irish in my view, that is, community. At the bedrock of what was achieved in the marriage equality referendum was that sense of Irish community. We were the first country in the world to have a public vote that delivered marriage equality. That is because we are neighbourly and we talk and deliberate with one another, particularly in the context of referendum campaigns. At its heart, there is a compassion in Ireland that is unique. Let us not forget that as toxicity reigns across social media and with what is taking place in the world. Those of us who can be allies should stand up and be allies.

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