Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am responding. We are on Committee Stage and I suggest the Acting Chairman looks at the fact that amendments have been grouped.

The Minister of State has said that the provision is based on the advice of the Attorney General, so we are saying one person will make this decision. Will he go back to Government and ask whether we really are willing to exclude? Will he ask whether this means that no more court cases can go forward, like the one I cited to him of S v. Bord Uchtála? We are saying that we as a State are very happy to compound in our law that we will give no opportunity for a child who identifies a gender to go to a school of their choice that their parents agree with and that everybody agrees with. That is not being progressive. It upholds parents' rights and the child's rights but I do not see progression.

Will the Minister of State go back to the drawing board and have a look again to see what we can do? I ask him to re-read the advice that came from the Ombudsman for Children on the general scheme that very much outlined very good and clear cases of why we need to do this. I do not accept that we are being groundbreaking in any way. I find it regrettable that we cannot even find a way to have a conservative amendment at least to allow a small number of children to live their lives as they wish, and as their families and friends wish them to live.