David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support the calls for moral pressure to be applied to the various orders of nuns. I understand that some orders have investment portfolios in hedge funds and elsewhere of hundreds of millions of euro. It seems to me to be grossly unchristian not to make this available to people who have been mistreated and to lump the burden on taxpayers who are already very heavily overburdened.

I share the concerns expressed on the Government side about MABS. It is a wonderful service but it is grossly overstretched and it has not been properly funded. People looking for appointments are being told they will not be seen until Christmas. The banks have now been unleashed upon them and with the passing of the Insolvency Bill they can make any number of harassing telephone calls. I voted against that provision. I am afraid this will lead to people taking their own lives.

I welcome the Bill on gender recognition, but it has some very serious flaws. For example, the plight of younger people going to school has not been sufficiently addressed. More worrying, this is despite the evidence given to the Joint Committee on Health and Children by Dr. Crowley, the HSE national director for quality and patient safety, who said that the HSE endorses a gender recognition process which places the responsibility for self-declaration on the applicant rather than on the details of a medical certificate diagnosis. In doing so, the emphasis is placed on the process of legal recognition of that self-declaration as opposed to the legal recognition of the medical certificate or diagnosis. They are flying in the face of their own expert advice.

I campaigned on the divorce referendum. Just as I said about abortion, I said that nobody is being forced to have a divorce, but the worrying aspect is that it seems they are. This legislation provides that people who undergo gender reassignment - even if they are in a happy relationship from which the sexual element may have faded out, they may have children and want to stay together for the sake of the family - the State is now forcing them to divorce. This is forced, involuntary divorce and it is utterly wrong. It should be the decision of the two people involved. Why should the State destroy that wish if they want to stay together as a family? It is absurd.