Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I call for a debate in the new term to discuss the UK's Cass review on gender identity services for children and young people in Ireland. Dr. Hilary Cass was asked by the UK National Health Service, NHS, to chair an independent to chair an independent review and make recommendations on how to improve services for young people experiencing issues with their gender identity and ensure that the best models for safe and effective services were commissioned. Having taken four years to complete, the Cass review is the most thorough scientific review of the evidence for treatments for gender-questioning and gender-distressed young people ever undertaken. Dr. Cass has since received a peerage for her service to her country, on which she should be universally commended.

She recommended a fundamentally different service model, one in line with the normal paediatric provision, providing holistic evidence-based care to gender-questioning children and young people. The review proposes moving away from the affirmative pathway of puberty blockers and hormones to a service based on psychosocial support. This would involve giving attention to all factors that may be contributing to a young person's difficulties or distress, including mental health issues, social problems and neurodiversity. The Cass review highlights concerns about the risk of diagnostic overshadowing where there is a single focus on gender and the need for puberty blockers. This then prevents the other issues affecting the child or young person from being addressed. Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones should not be routinely prescribed.

Between 2011 and 2021, some 234 young people in Ireland, an average of 21 people per year, were referred to the Tavistock gender identity development services programme. Undoubtedly, this figure for children in Ireland requesting these types of services has increased since 2021. The HSE response to the Cass report will be reviewed as part of a new model of gender healthcare that will be developed up to 2026. That is far too late to conduct a review. This is fundamentally a question of children's welfare, and we are witnessing the chronic failure of the State in this regard. What will it take for the Government and this country to genuinely look after the welfare of the children of this nation? We are letting the children of this nation suffer in so many ways. With the announcement of an €8.3 billion spending package for budget 2025, it is shameful that we would not prioritise children's healthcare. For this reason, I ask that Ireland conduct our own review in order that we can support and protect our young people.