Aideen Hayden (Labour)

I welcome both Ministers to the House. A significant part of the debate has focused on constitutional issues. I read the Minister, Deputy Shatter's speech with interest and I listened to Senator Zappone. As I am not sufficiently au fait with the Senator's arguments to know whether they are constitutionally robust, I will not respond to them.

A wider public issue must be addressed. Recent weeks in particular have given legs to our debate. A number of Members referred to the commitment in the programme for Government that clearly stated that people of non-faith or minority religious backgrounds and publicly identified lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, LGBT, people should not be deterred from training or taking up employment as teachers. Religious freedom has been discussed in the context of the Constitution. Some bodies that try to protect their ethos by ensuring that the people employed by them are sympathetic to their ethos will never employ openly gay persons. A number of Catholic parents regard being gay as abhorrent and against Catholic teaching. If there is a constitutional respect for the preservation of ethos, one cannot have legislation that will ensure that some schools will employ gay teachers. I would like to say that this argument is going in the right direction. Having heard of what has occurred, though, particularly the silencing of certain theologians, I am not convinced. It may be going in the opposite direction.

There is a perception in the media that every member of the Labour Party is atheistic, anti-Catholic or whatever the case may be. I will put my views on the record. I am what one might call an Àla carte Catholic. It is not wrong to be a homosexual, nor is the silencing of priests and brothers who take opposite views to the hierarchy in Rome. Neither is it right to discriminate against an entire section of the Irish population.

I agree with the sentiment of Senator Power's legislation. It is equally wrong to be against religious teaching from an atheistic point of view. I will illustrate using a personal story. My 15 year old daughter was attending a philosophy course at a large university and was derided for having pro-Catholic views. I am not in any way anti-Catholic, but ethos is important. We have a choice to make. If there is a contradiction between constitutional rights, those being, to religious expression, to earn a living and so forth, the Irish people must make a choice. I respect the Ministers' remarks and I agree with them that we may need more time to consider the issue. However and as Senator Reilly stated, the current situation is depriving some of the children of this country of a right to be taught by people who hold the same sexual preference that they do. We are not respecting gay children, given the fact that our tradition does not respect the rights of gay people.

Difficult choices must be made. If we cannot reconcile this situation, the time has come to put the issue to the people as a constitutional amendment. If this is what it takes to do what the Government has committed to, so be it.