Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Members may know I come from the town of Listowel and am proud to say that. The town has been making headlines recently for all the wrong reasons. A visiting priest - not a regular priest of the parish - made a number of homilies over the weekend in which he stated straightforwardly that people who are homosexual and in same-sex relationships or other things like that were living in sin. I have no problem with him believing that. He is entitled to his opinion. I do not know if it is church dogma. I am not qualified to say that. It is a matter, as far as I am concerned, for the church.

Certain slants in the media would give an opposite impression but he was not speaking for me, people I know or the people of Listowel. Listowel has always been a very open and liberal community. In results of recent referendums on the eighth amendment and equality in marriage, there was a majority in Listowel for those motions. I say to the LGBT community to have no fears of our community in north Kerry. We are with you and we support you.

I spoke in this Chamber a couple of years ago about another incident in the same church, St. Mary's in Listowel. It had to do with the tragic story of a young girl called Peggy McCarthy, who died in labour because she was not admitted to the local health services, basically because she was having a child out of wedlock. It is unbelievable that that happened as recently as 1946. To compound it, the parish priest of the day refused to allow her remains to repose in the church before burial. He locked the gate and put bars and chains on it. That did not stop the local community standing up for their neighbour, breaking down those chains, opening the church and making sure the body was received as was right and proper. My town is a proud and open town. We welcome everybody and condemn nobody. The age of Peggy McCarthy is long over and it is time that other people woke up and realised that.