I am glad to have speaking time in this debate. I was born in 1982, so I spent much of the 1990s in primary school and secondary school, finishing up in 2000. During all those years the schoolyards were, I think, tougher places than they are now. I was a teacher before I became a TD and I think the school I taught in was quite soft and inclusive. However, certainly when I was in school, you shot insults from the hip like a gunslinger. Usually those insults were homophobic and they were thrown around the schoolyard here, there and everywhere, every single day of the year. To many, they were brushed off and were water off a ducks back but years later, I met some of my schoolmates who said how those comments hurt because during those teenage adolescent years, they were struggling with their sexuality. It was not a time when people would just come out, although nowadays some people do not come out at all. They just grow up, meet people and form relationships. They do not have to tell mom, dad or their circle of friends they are gay. Coming out is not a thing but back then coming out was a colossal thing. For these people to be struggling in those years and for everyone around them in the schoolyard throwing these insults, that was quite typical in the 1990s. I do not fault the school system, parents or anything. I think it was a cultural thing. It is a cultural thing that, to a large degree, we have overcome. I was delighted years later when holding electoral office that I and many more people of my era were able to atone for those schoolyard days when we went out and campaigned for marriage equality. Naively, as an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, I thought that was it. I thought that was the moon landing moment, that there is marriage equality, that it is fantastic and that anything that went before, including the illegality of homosexual relationships and the criminalisation people who were in same-sex relationships was all behind us because we recognised, as a State, that marriage equality was a thing that was to be cherished and respected but not so, as it turns out. What I increasingly hear when people come to my clinics and when I speak with the gay community in County Clare that life is not getting easier for them and, if anything, it is getting more difficult. They attribute some of this to the rise of the far right and an intolerance of people who might have different coloured skin, a different religion or who love differently. That kind of intolerance has no place at all in modern Irish life. It is 2026 and it has no place whatsoever in modern Irish life. Like others, I am alarmed. I am an INTO member and a teacher and I am alarmed that one fifth of my profession who identify as being LGBTQ+ have only come out in the school environment with the employers, colleagues and the school patron. That is something we need to seriously look at. Someone should feel comfortable in their workplace to be who they are. In that staff room over a cup of coffee, they should be able to talk about what they are doing with their boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife and what their weekend plans are and what their relationship is. All of that is quite commonplace and it should not be the case that someone feels they have to hide something from their employer or their colleagues and it is quite perverse in that regard. It is great that in this House we have had a Taoiseach who is openly gay as well as many Members of this House who are married and very open. Maybe they do not consider it day to day but they carry huge leadership roles within the LGBTQ+ community. However, as someone who follows sport avidly, it does concern me that in elite sport, we have very few people who have felt comfortable enough to come out and be able to share with fans and supporters. They share so much of their lives now. It is not just what happens on the field, on the court or on the running track. So much of their lives is now lived out on social media or on the back pages of the newspaper that have the sporting columns. Yet, within so many sports - I will not just single out one - they too feel the need to hide. I think some of that may be down to terrace chat. To some degree, it happens in Ireland but certainly in the UK when you go to soccer matches, the insults roared from the sidelines are not acceptable. We need to support athletes, in particular, because in music and in the arts there does not seem to be those same barriers and people can be who they want to be. In politics, thankfully, in 2026, any Member here who is gay is able to be, without any judgment. There are probably idiots online who give them grief but colleagues, from all political persuasions, would not. We are coming up to the fifth anniversary of the awful attack in August 2021 on Olympian Jack Woolley in Dublin city centre. He is someone who has represented our nation at the top level. He stood many times on the podium in his preferred sport, taekwondo. He is an outstanding young man. He was on "Dancing with the Stars" as well. He is an outstanding role model for young people and yet he was attacked just a couple of hundred yards down the street in Dublin for being who he is. That is wrong. To close on a positive note, I wish all who celebrate Pride, those who are part of the LGBTQ+ community - they will have to shorten that or make it easier for us to rattle off - and those who will march at the weekend a very happy Pride. As someone who grew up in the 1990s, with a bit of maturity and getting away from that schoolyard when the bell rings and all that happens in the schoolyard, I would be absolutely thrilled and delighted if any son or daughter of mine came out in years to come and said "Dad, I am gay, I love someone the same sex as me" but I hope they will not have to. I hope we get to that point. A lot of people are in inclusive families where they do not have to say that. Hopefully, that is the pathway forward for most. Those of us who sit in government and in opposition have to make sure public policy reflects the kind of inclusive values we have. One thing that jumped out from a few contributors today is the idea that four fifths of teachers - my own profession - who are gay feel they cannot say that in their work environment. That is something we need to reflect on. I am Chair of the Oireachtas education and youth committee and working in tandem with the Minister, we need to do a body of work on that because it is not acceptable.

Sentiment score: 0.09