Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I was relieved at the start of the Senator's contribution to hear she was not in any way questioning protection for trans people in society, but I ask her in future contributions to consider her framing because to bring reference on at least two occasions to sex offenders straight into the debate and to speak about voyeurism and exhibitionism in a way that suggested these are linked to a person being trans is really problematic. There are people watching the proceedings in this Upper House of our national Parliament, such as young people or people who, as the Senator stated, may be struggling with their gender identity, and I have deep concerns with the way in which she linked some of the concepts she put together in her contribution. The rights of trans people are not up for question, as far as I am concerned. We have to put in place protections for trans people and that is what we are seeking to do in initiating this consultation on the amending of equality legislation.

It is important to state we are at the start of this process. We are undertaking a public consultation that will inform proposals that will come forward which will then go to a pre-legislative scrutiny process and then come before these Houses. I want to push back very strongly against suggestions there is some sort of jump or something is being done secretly. We have extended the consultation period on the equality legislation.

The Government is committed to building a fair and equal society where no person faces discrimination. Part of the work of creating an equal society is developing whole-of-government strategies that include actions aimed at addressing particular inequalities, such as the national strategy for women and girls and the national Traveller and Roma inclusion strategy. Another key element is putting in place legislation that prohibits discrimination and provides access to redress for those who have been discriminated against.

We have the Equal Status Acts and the Employment Equality Acts, which consider discrimination on a range of statuses, including marital status, family status, sexual orientation, gender and membership of the Traveller community. I began the review of the equality Acts to examine the scope and operation of the legislation to ensure it offers effective protections and accessible remedies to those who experience discrimination. Among the issues committed to in the programme for Government is the consideration of widening the grounds of gender and the introduction of a ground of discrimination on the basis of socioeconomic status.

The Senator will see that the national LGBTI+ inclusion strategy recognises the need to ensure adequate protection against discrimination for transgendered, non-conforming and intersex people. That is one of the issues at which we will be looking in this review. We will undertake the review. Everyone is entitled to participate in it. There will be a pre-legislative process.However, it is very important that we recognise that transpeople in our society are deeply vulnerable. The suicide rates among transpeople are much higher than those for other parts of society. It is incumbent on all of us to be very careful with the language and concepts we use and to ensure that nobody who is transgender in this country feels that his or her rights or existence in our society are in any way up for debate in this House.