Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The action plan on bullying, the LGBT youth strategy, and Better Outcomes, Better Future are welcome initiatives, but as long as an ethos-based school can choose aspects of its curriculum to uphold the characteristic spirit of that school we are in real trouble. This morning I lay in bed scrolling Twitter while trying to wake up, and there was a tweet from someone called Harrison Guy, who has just married his partner, Adrian Homer. When I read his tweet the penny dropped. He said that at 13 he realised he was gay and told himself he probably would never know love, but he was happy to say today that he was wrong as he married his partner. When LGBT young people realise we are LGBT we often spend five to ten years in the closet. After I realised I was gay I spent a period during which I told myself I would never love a partner, and today I am still trying to undo that erosive period. Schools, our homes and our communities are the places where we can change this, and the State has a direct responsibility for the lives of young people and their development and education. Speak to any member of the LGBTQI community and they will reiterate what I am saying. I was left out of something that I needed more than most. I am still struggling to negotiate intimacy and communicate love. LGBT young people deserve better and at present we are letting them down.