I too welcome everyone in the Gallery, including many former colleagues of mine who work in LGBT organisations across the country. They do phenomenal work every single day supporting people in the community. I thank them for their work; it is greatly appreciated. Pride is an important time of year and a very good celebration. It is also a protest and a time to call for progress. Sadly, we have not seen the kind of progress we need to see on these crucial issues. Sometimes when I listen to the speeches of Government Ministers I think I live in a different country. It was painful to listen to the speech by the Minister of State in which she described as one of the achievements progress on trans healthcare. We have the worst trans healthcare in all of Europe. How can a Minister of State stand in the Dáil and call that an achievement and say there is progress on it when the lived reality for trans, non-binary and intersex people in this country is awful in terms of accessing basic healthcare? Similarly, the Minister spoke about progress in terms of the community service fund. That has existed for many years now. It is basic funding to provide basic services, but it is not enough. It is a drop in the ocean compared to the need. The Minister of State mentioned progress on HIV and while the campaign is certainly good, the Government has given up on its target of ending HIV transmissions by 2030. It has admitted it is not going to get there. That is not an achievement. We are missing the mark. We could be ending HIV transmissions in this decade if we would just commit to putting in the services, doing the rapid testing and rolling out pre-exposure prophylaxis, PrEP. We know what needs to be done but the Government is not committing to doing it. It is deeply frustrating to have members of the Government come into the House and call these achievements when the Government is utterly failing to make progress on crucial issues. Conversion practices were mentioned. There was a commitment in the 2020 programme for Government to ban conversion practices. That is six years ago. The Minister spoke about taking time but how much time does she need? It has been six years since the Government committed to a ban. Eight other countries in Europe have done. We do not have to reinvent the wheel here. We can look at what other countries have done and implement it here. We do not have to keep waiting. We should not keep waiting and we should demand more. Assisted human reproduction was mentioned. It has been 20 years since the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction produced its report. Twenty years we have been waiting. The Minister said we will have legislation this term. Does she mean before the Dáil recess? We need to know exactly when. Families are waiting to have their rights vindicated and the gaps in family law closed. We need to know when that legislation will be before the Dáil because we have waited far too long. The disregard legislation was mentioned. It has still not been enacted and we are still waiting for it to happen. It should have happened 33 years ago when the State decriminalised homosexuality. We have been left waiting and it not good enough. Rainbow flags outside Government Buildings are nice but what we actually want to see is progress on LGBT rights. I could come have in here and given the same speech I gave last year. I could have said exactly the same, because we have not made progress. If the Minister does not believe me, she should believe ILGA-Europe, which is holding its conference in Dublin this year. It ranks every European country on LGBT human rights and policy protections. It has ranked Ireland 14th year after year and has told us we are not making progress on this crucial issue. If the Minister needs to know what needs to be done, she should have a look at the policy platforms set out by the Social Democrats. We have listed the LGBT rights that need to be progressed. We need to see law reform, family rights issues addressed, the Equality Acts updated, legal gender recognition for non-binary people and a ban on infant genital mutilation. Ireland scored 0% on the ILGA-Europe rankings on the rights and protections for intersex people. We need a national action plan to ban hate crime. I could go on and on. We also need to address issues of mental health. We need better funding and services. We need to tackle HIV transmission and invest in community services across the country. We need to close the remaining gaps in the law and focus on the more marginalised parts of our community. A large number of people who are LGBT are homeless or seeking international protection. We need to ensure we have support and dedicated services in place for more vulnerable members of the community. We are not making the kind of progress we should be making on these issues. We also need to stand up to countries around the world that are rowing back on LGBT rights. We need to get a stronger stance in international and foreign affairs on these issues. I do not want to be back here next year saying again that we have not seen the kind of progress we need. I want the Government to make progress. I will cheer it on if it advances the law reform agenda set out by the Social Democrats and others, but the Government has not made that kind of progress. It has not done the kinds of things that need to be done to improve people's lives. During this Pride, we want the Government to make commitments to advance all of these issues and more.

Sentiment score: 0.06