Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will have to consider that and come back to the Senator. To be honest, gender identity is fully acknowledged in schools in practice. We have not experienced any section 29 appeals where people have found themselves to be discriminated against. That is not to say that it should not be clearly stated in the Bill. If there is some easy way of acknowledging that I would be disposed to consider it. I am very keen that we pass the Bill and put a lot of its very valuable elements in place in schools. I have made a commitment that all of the provisions will be in place by September 2019. I do not want to lose the opportunity to progress the Bill, although I acknowledge the validity of what the Senator has said. I will examine the proposal and ask my officials to see whether we can accommodate it, and I will talk to the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel. The signal I got when I raised this issue, having read the Senator's amendment, was that there were misgivings within the Office of Parliamentary Counsel about trying to address the issue in this way. In light of what the Senator has said, I will make sure to go back and cover the tracks.