Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)

I am glad I made it for the end of the debate. This is a critically important issue for the many people waiting 13 years, on average, for a health service. We have the worst trans healthcare in the EU. I was listening to the debate on my way here. I welcome the motion and thank the Labour Party for putting it forward.

Trans people are a minority who are being disgracefully targeted, picked on, scapegoated and used to divide people. This is being done by the far right, obviously, but mainstream politicians are leaning into it because it is a difficult issue for them to tackle with people given that the gender binary, the traditional family and all those issues are promoted in society. I urge the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health to move on this. In a previous debate, she talked about her personal experience. I ask her to act. She has personal knowledge of the difficulty this is causing.

I have a few points to make about informed consent versus clinicians. I was one of the people in here practically every week demanding change on abortion rights. I was one of very few TDs, to be frank; others then followed. Repeal was not won by doctors in this country at all. They came on board much later. They came on board when women, young people and LGBT+ people put it on the agenda with a mass popular movement. Then they came on board. It is similar with trans healthcare. I heard Sinn Féin Deputies talking in riddles a few minutes ago. I will demystify the riddle for them. The abortion pill was discovered by women in Latin America who were taking it to bring about miscarriages. It then became mainstream. It is similar with trans healthcare now. Young people are being forced to access hormones themselves because their doctors are not helping them. We need a directive issued by the Minister instructing every doctor to help people with blood tests and things like that.

I say to the Sinn Féin Members not to wait for clinicians. It is trans people themselves who understand their needs and the Deputies to my left need to listen to that. They are not listening in the North; they need to listen in the South. The same goes for all the parties. For the minority over there, I would not waste my time. They are going to continue to pick on trans people. We must be to the forefront in defending them.

See this speech in context