Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I commend Senator Zappone and her independent colleagues on tabling this motion, and I welcome the guests in the Visitors Gallery. I also commend Senator Power, who raised the issue on the Order of Business. It is an issue which she regularly raises with great passion in the House.

I am delighted we are having this debate. Some will say that it is current, timely and topical, but I believe it is both overdue and essential. It is vital to have a debate on the issues of free speech, homophobia and the public service role of the State broadcaster in these debates. While these debates are all interconnected - free speech in modern Ireland, homophobia in modern Ireland and the public service role of the State broadcaster in modern Ireland - are each worthy of their own parallel debates. I use the term "modern Ireland" for each debate, yet in the last few weeks I feel as though I have travelled through time from modern Ireland to Catholic, dogmatic Ireland and then back to modern Ireland again with a jolt.

Three months ago I though we had a modern State, that Ireland was cosmopolitan, friendly and outward looking, with people in the city friendly to all regardless of skin colour, sexual orientation or background and in which, by and large, nobody would experience prejudice. Senators have alluded to a sequence of events, which I am still struggling to reconcile and which makes we wonder whether we live in a modern country that accepts everybody or whether we simply put on that face.

A speech about homophobia opened a can of worms. There were arguments back and forth with the State broadcasting service paying taxpayers' money to the tune of €85,000. What has happened since then has been heartening. People of all faiths and from all backgrounds have stood up to speak out in favour of equality. We have heard stories about homophobia from throughout the country. Prejudices have been simmering beneath the surface waiting to be exposed, having gone unchecked for far too long. During the weekend, a person on an Irish radio station sports programme in a reference to gay people said:

What are their interests? I mean, if you have ever sat down with one, you know, homosexual people, and asked them what their interests are, very often they have no interest in any kind of sport. That is my experience of sitting down with them. I have done it on a regular basis.

Is this an example of homophobia, being misinformed, or plain ignorance? Many would not be entirely sure, but I know it should not go unchecked. It is a use of language that needs to be identified for what it is - discriminatory, biased nonsense.

The forthcoming referendum on same-sex marriage will take place in 2015. This is probably the start of a long-ranging debate on marriage, society, homosexuality and a great many other things. However, this debate is a very useful exercise in defining the parameters of the debate and ensuring that what we have witnessed and a journalist being paid by RTE does not happen again. We must ensure the debate is conducted in a reasoned, civilised and decent manner. I was looking through the archives recently and discovered a quotation from Senator Norris in 2003: "The level of homophobia is appalling and it should be addressed in our schools and elsewhere." It is sad to think that now, more than a decade later, we still face an appalling level of homophobia in our society. While things evolve and change, they perhaps do so just a little too slowly at times.

I commend the great work being done by LGBT charity ShoutOut, which was just formed last year. ShoutOut visited more than 45 schools throughout the country, delivering anti-bullying workshops. It did so on a voluntary basis, being funded through Internet donations. When it comes to the State broadcaster, it is working on tighter budgets than ever before while at the same time, to be fair, ensuring more output. In short, like many other public sector institutions, it has to do more with less. While it should be commended on doing so, none the less RTE, with the threat of legal action, in my opinion seemed to have reached for the panic button and decided that a smaller payout on the taxpayer tab today was better than the risk of a larger payout down the line. Perhaps it was right. I certainly know as a practising litigation lawyer that defamation cases are extremely expensive and often these matters are decided on an economic basis.

I am looking forward to the referendum on same-sex marriage and to a national debate of substance on the issue. It would also be a worthwhile exercise for RTE to establish the sequence of events which led it to award such a payout. I commend once again Senator Zappone and the Senators in the Independent group for providing this opportunity to debate the issue. I look forward to the Minister's responses, especially his comment on the RTE issue.