Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I attended a conference on Saturday called HeadSpace2018 at Trinity College. It was about how people should use creativity as they grow older, and how creativity can hold onto elders in a way they should be held onto and how their quality of life as they get older can depend more on creativity than on finance and security. In the middle of it - there is a reason I am telling this story - a choir came on stage. Its members were from the inner city and many of them were intellectually disabled and many had adult Down's syndrome. They sang with much gusto, brilliance, rhythm and joy. As I sat there I recalled the words of Tom Murphy, who said that it is when people sing that one knows who they really are. That is right.

Senator Boyhan spoke, in a different context, about knowing who we really are. Sometimes it is hard to express who we really are on a daily basis, and for people to listen to who we really are, be it intellectually, emotionally, politically, socially or in any way. For me, therefore, the idea of conversion therapy is anathema to everything that everybody's individual heartbeat stands for. In fact, I will return to the arts again to speak about immersion. If one were to be immersed in something like the arts, they contain a better conduit or channel for who one really is when things get stuck because we do not have the legislation to free people. That is what this legislation is about, freeing people to be who they really are and how their hearts beat. That is the fundamental and profound right of all citizens. I am seeking to make the connection between who people were and how the arts gave them that conduit and how Senator Warfield's Bill is trying to free that up once again.

I do not like the word "conversion". Even though I am in my 60s, I know I look 38.