Non-Binary and Intersex Recognition Bill 2026: Second Stage [Private Members]

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." Before I introduce the Bill, I welcome to the Gallery a huge number of people who are representing various groups in the LGBTQI community. I welcome Transgender Equality Network of Ireland, TENI, Belong To, Intersex Ireland, Trans Healthcare Action, ShoutOut and Trans Pride. Apologies, if I have left anyone out. I can come back to it at the end. It gives the Minister an idea of how desperate people in the LGBT+ community are for reform and for change and for him to live up to the promises that his party, Fine Gael and others gave to this community. My Bill proposes to give legal rights and recognition to non-binary and intersex people in Ireland. They are a small minority but they face extreme invisibility, marginalisation, violence and discrimination in this world. The Bill essentially introduces a third option on the gender recognition certificate in addition to M and F, namely, the option of X or Other. Without legal recognition, a non-binary person is systematically discriminated against in accessing healthcare and legal documents and in their interactions with the State and society in general. For a person born with intersex characteristics, it allows a parent or qualified informant to put an X on a birth certificate, meaning that parents would not be forced to immediately choose between male and female. It gives equality before the law and prevents discrimination on these grounds. To be clear, in 2015, Ireland broke new ground in allowing self-determination in terms of gender but progress has completely and utterly stalled since then and here we are 11 years later with nothing done. The review set up by the Government at the time recommended that non-binary people would also be allowed to be recognised on the gender recognition certificate. To give Members an idea of what it means to be non-binary in this society, it refers to any person who identifies outside the binary of male and female. This includes non-binary people but also gender queer people - anyone who sees themselves as being outside the male and female binary. From talking to people, even with something as simple as booking a train ticket, you are immediately asked to put, Mr., Mrs. or Ms, and straightaway, in your life, this affects you and, obviously, your passport and your birth certificate do not reflect who you are. The census was a missed opportunity in terms of identifying how many people would be non-binary. However, if up to 10% of people are LGBTQI, and more people are identifying, in surveys a third would say that they are non-binary. Globally, it is estimated that 2% of the world population identifies in this way. What is intersex? Intersex people are those born with innate variations of sex characteristics that vary from the societal or medical understanding of typical female and male bodies. Approximately, one-in-500 infants, for example, is born with ambiguous genitalia or other variations of sex development and there are over 40 different types of intersex characteristics, which I do not have time to go into. However, I want to make it clear that in October 2025 the Government signed up to a Council of Europe directive on intersex equality and I am disgusted to find out today that the Government is opposing this Bill, that it will not agree to what was recommended in the gender recognition review and it will not agree to what it promised at the Council of Europe which was to recognise intersex people and to cut out, in particular, the unwanted and dangerous medical interventions that are being done on babies in the name of enforcing a rigid gender binary. That has been banned in many countries but it has not been banned in Ireland. One of the reasons for putting forward this Bill is to recognise intersex people and to say that this cannot be enforced medically and pushed onto parents with such dangerous repercussions for people throughout the rest of their lives. The UN estimates that 1.7% of the world population were born with some intersex traits. Regarding the context of the Bill, we all know there is pushback going on in society. The programme for Government is wishy-washy, even compared to the one in 2020. However, it does commit very clearly to inclusivity and to LGBT+ recognition. Yet here is the first Bill that has come before the Government almost two years into the Dáil term, and it is going to oppose it. I would be hugely interested to hear why. I think one of the reasons is that it is afraid. I think the pushback by the far right and extreme right worldwide and in this country has made the Government fearful. I do not understand it because this Bill is very basic. It is just recognition of the law for people with regard to State documents and their interventions with the State. One of the things that was committed to was that there would be an opening up of State Departments but we still do not have that. We have it in many other fora, like the colleges and universities, which are very good in that they allow non-binary recognition in the main - certainly most of the big universities. However, in so many other interactions with the State, such as with the Department of Social Protection and so on, the Government has not opened up anything. This Bill is putting it on the Government agenda to do so. There is also a myth that this is some new fad. Non-binary and intersex people have always existed. Ancient civilisations recognised multigenders, as did many other civilisations from Mesopotamia to Asia. It is in art. It is everywhere. Unfortunately, we have a situation where our State has the Gender Recognition Act, which just allows people to transition from male to female but not to non-binary, and does not recognise intersex people. I want to give an idea of how Ireland has been called out on the UN stage. We had the great 2015 marriage equality referendum, which was obviously a huge push forward. It was led by a grassroots mass movement and pushed onto the Establishment’s agenda. However, Ireland has been called out on the UN stage for its lack of action on this. We are registering zero on these issues. This Bill is a chance for the Government to rectify that. I want to say how important this is for non-binary and intersex people. An EU survey found that one in ten LGBTQI people had faced violence over the past five years. A report in UCD found a 13% increase in discrimination from 2024 to 2026. There is an era of hostility towards LGBT+ people. One in three intersex people has faced violence in Europe over the past five years. We know that one of the first things Trump did was to enforce this rigid gender binary. It is very important for the far right, and for the maintenance of capitalism right now, not to allow any deviation from gender norms. We are seeing an increase in attacks on LGBT+ people worldwide. We should be fighting back against this, and the Bill is a key part of that. It is important to refer to the work of Belong To, which deals particularly with young people. After the midterm break next week, Belong To will have Stand Up week in schools. I was in those schools when I was a teacher. All schools will be talking about non-binary people, yet the State does not recognise them. Children and young people in classrooms, and their teachers, will rightly be encouraged to recognise that, yet the State does not. There is a real problem here. A Belong To survey found that 61% of intersex people reported moderate to severe depression, 60% had self-harmed and 74% had experienced suicidal thoughts. How is that acceptable in our society? Does the Minister not agree that the State refusing to recognise people is a key contributor to that? To conclude, I want to comment on some of the issues that have been raised by TENI, which has made this point crystal clear. All of the LGBT+ organisations are supporting this Bill. It is deeply disappointing for them that the Government is confronting this first Bill with outright opposition. This is not a stop, not a commitment to work on the Bill and let it pass at this stage but just outright opposition. No explanation has been sent, by the way, to the movers of the Bill. TENI made the point that progress has stalled. It has been calling for the expansion of the gender recognition process to non-binary people. It has also said that this is causing huge problems, depression and anxiety for many people. I do not have time to outline them but there are many testimonials.

I thank Deputy Coppinger for introducing this Bill and thank the campaigners and organisations who have been forced to fight so hard for their rights to be recognised, including TENI, Intersex Ireland, Trans Healthcare Action, Belong To, Trans and Intersex Pride, Transgress the NGS and ShoutOut. It is clear that intersex and non-binary recognition has been deliberately ignored by this Government and the previous one. It is eight years since the Government’s own review of the Gender Recognition Act recommended legal gender recognition for non-binary people. It is in its own national LGBTQI inclusion strategy. However, nothing has been done and instead, the Government is going to vote against the implementation of its own recommendations later today. Everybody knows why. It is because the political pendulum has swung to the right since 2018, and Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the right-wing Independents are pandering to that. That is what they are prioritising over the rights and the lives of intersex and non-binary people. We know that across the world, violence, hate crimes and discrimination against LGBTQI people are on the rise. A deliberate strategy of hatred against anyone who is seen as different is being whipped up by the far right, and it is coming right from the top - from Donald Trump and from the big tech bros like Elon Musk. The Government is doing nothing to stop it. Instead of fighting against the tide of hate, it is actually leaning into it. It is going with the flow. That is why legal gender recognition has stalled since 2018, and it is why trans, non-binary, queer and intersex people are increasingly under attack. A lot of people may have never heard of intersex and may not know what it means. They do not realise that 1.7% of people globally are born with intersex characteristics, which means they are born with chromosomes, hormones or anatomy that differ from what is regarded as typically male or female. That has always happened. It is a medically recognised fact. There are tens of thousands of intersex people living in Ireland right now, a largely invisible minority that has been mistreated by the State and the medical profession, and they have had unnecessary surgeries performed on them without their consent. This Bill cannot right all of those historical wrongs but it can give hope to intersex adults who wish to be recognised today as non-binary so they can choose to have their gender marked as X on official documents. It will allow parents to make the same decision for their children until they are old enough to know how they want to be recognised, instead of forcing them to be assigned as male or female at birth and potentially causing them lifelong psychological damage. Belong To has found that 61% of intersex people suffer from depression and half have attempted suicide. This Bill will also allow other non-binary people to have their gender recognised instead of being forced by the State into a box that they do not want to be in and do not fit into. I got an eloquent email last night from a non-binary person in my constituency that describes their experience of non-recognition. It states: For many people, something as simple as filling out a form, booking an appointment, travelling or showing identification is something that they barely think twice about. For me, these everyday situations can be deeply uncomfortable, distressing and humiliating. As a non-binary person, I am constantly forced to identify myself in ways that do not reflect who I am. I am not asking for special treatment. I am asking for the same dignity, respect and recognition that other people are able to take for granted. We deserve to be seen, we deserve to be recognised and we deserve to live our lives without being made to feel ashamed of who we are. Legal recognition will be the first step in defending non-binary people from the discrimination and hate they face, along with other marginalised groups. Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Malta, the Netherlands, Canada, Costa Rica, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and 22 US states have already done it. Ireland can and should be next. It is ironic that the loudest, most vociferous opposition to this Bill will come from the right, which prides itself on opposing the so-called nanny state. It is hard to imagine a more intrusive and interfering, more nannyish role for the State than policing gender, forcing people who do not fall into a binary category to mark male or female on a passport or birth certificate. Why should the State have any place in policing how we understand ourselves, our identities and our gender? Of course it should not. Insisting that the State continues to police and enforce the gender binary is part of a general assault on individual freedoms and individual rights. It is time to take a stand against it.

I thank Deputy Coppinger and her staff for all their work on this very important Bill. Recognising non-binary and intersex people is essential to upholding human rights, equality and dignity for all. At the end of the day, this Bill is about basic human rights. It is about a person's right to live with dignity, respect and recognition. Everyone has the right to have their identity recognised and to participate fully in society without fear of discrimination and exclusion. Acknowledging their experiences affirms that human diversity is a valuable part of a shared humanity. We all experience the world differently. These experiences must be respected and valued for all. Diversity must not only be recognised but celebrated. Diversity enriches our society. It makes communities stronger, more resilient and better equipped to respond to the challenges we face in the world today. Upholding the rights and dignity of non-binary intersex people means creating a society where everyone is free to be themselves, where difference is embraced rather than marginalised, where equality, inclusion and respect are fundamental principles of the world we live in. Recognising the identities can also significantly improve LGBTI mental health and well-being by fostering a sense of belonging, safety, acceptance and reducing stigma and discrimination. Research has consistently found that mental health difficulties are far more prevalent in the LGBTI community. I will repeat what has been said already about recent studies because it is important to get this on the record. Being from the LGBTI community, people in Ireland continue to face high levels of self-harm, suicide and increased levels of depression and anxiety. I will give the Minister statistics. Some 27% of people experience severe symptoms of depression, 34% experience severe symptoms of anxiety, 52% experience self-harm, and 64% reported suicidal thoughts. Let that sink in. A total of 26% have made suicidal attempts. These percentages are higher among young LGBTI people. Some 50% of people between the ages of 14 and 18 have experienced severe symptoms of depression, and 66% have experienced severe symptoms of anxiety, while 72% have experienced self-harm. I am a father and reading these statistics is appalling. Shockingly, the self-harm and suicide percentages are even higher in non-binary people. A total of 75% had self-harmed, 82% reported suicidal thoughts and 39% had attempted suicide. It is an absolutely shocking statistic and the Government is tone deaf to what is going on. It is heartbreaking that so many people have experienced such profound stress. The Government needs to do much better. It needs to recognise people's basic human rights. Every person deserves to feel their life is worth living. Right now, this is not happening in our country. Being accepted and recognised should be a right, not a privilege. There is no doubt that Ireland has made significant progress over the recent decades but far more work needs to be done. We should be ahead. Instead, it feels like we are stuck in 2016. This Bill would go a long way to creating equality for non-binary and intersex people in Ireland. Ultimately, recognising and respecting the non-binary and intersex people is essential to ensuring that everyone in our country enjoys the same fundamental rights, freedoms, and opportunities.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an deis labhairt ar an Non-Binary and Intersex Recognition Bill 2026. I begin by making the Government's position very clear. We absolutely recognise that the question of legal recognition for people who wish to identify as non-binary is important. This is not, therefore, a question of whether the concerns raised by this Bill deserve consideration. They absolutely do. The question before us is whether this particular Bill provides an appropriate, workable and sufficiently considered way of addressing these concerns. It is the Government's view that this Bill does not. The Bill is not very basic, to quote Deputy Coppinger's words. It makes very significant changes, not just to the Gender Recognition Act 2015 but also to the Civil Registration Act 2004, the Employment Equality Act 1998, the Equal Status Act 2000 and the Interpretation Act 2005. These are changes with implications that extend well beyond the gender recognition system itself. For that reason, the Government cannot support this Bill as it is drafted. The Government is already committed to examining non-binary recognition and it is absolutely vital to re-emphasise that while opposing this particular Bill, the Government is not opposing the consideration of legal recognition for non-binary people. In response to the review of the Gender Recognition Act, Government Departments and other public bodies were tasked by Government with considering and taking positive steps to improve the position of people who are non-binary. The review of the Act also included a recommendation relating to making legal gender recognition available to people who are non-binary. The National LGBTIQ+ Inclusion Strategy II 2024-2028 contains a commitment to progress that recommendation. As part of that work, the Government is pursuing an impact assessment on legal recognition. This involves a detailed examination across Government Departments and State bodies on how the introduction of a third gender category could be accommodated from both a policy and an operational perspective. That is the appropriate approach. Before making the kind of change with implications across the Statute Book and public administration, we need to understand those implications properly. Legal recognition of a third gender should be progressed on the basis of careful analysis and an implementable framework, rather than legislating first and addressing the consequences afterwards. The Bill goes considerably further than simply recognising a non-binary gender. The Bill is presented as providing for the recognition of a non-binary gender and people who are born intersex but its legal consequences are much broader. Section 2 would insert into the Gender Recognition Act a right for every person resident in the State to change their recorded gender to female, male or non-binary. This is a particularly significant provision because it is drafted without an age qualification. The Government's concern is therefore that the provision will create a universal entitlement, regardless of age, undermining the safeguards that apply to children under the age of 18 under the existing gender recognition framework. Whatever view Members may take on the appropriate arrangements for children, changes of that significance should follow a deliberate consideration of children's circumstances and the appropriate safeguards. This should not arise simply as a consequence of a broadly drafted Bill. I am also particularly concerned about the proposed amendments to the civil registration system. Section 6 addresses the recording of sex in registers relating to births, stillbirths, adoptions and deaths, including provision for an X entry. The General Register Office assessment identifies a fundamental difficulty with this approach. It considers that the proposal would change existing arrangements by enabling the qualified informant registering the event to determine the sex recorded, rather than relying on the present medical determination. The Bill also does not clarify the process by which an existing medical determination of male or female could be amended to X when it is being registered. That is not simply an administrative change. Civil registration records fulfil functions that are quite distinct from the recognition of a person's gender identity. The proposed change could affect the viability of gender data drawn from those registers and currently used by the Central Statistics Office in measuring health and demographic indicators. We therefore need to distinguish carefully between two issues: recognising a person's gender for legal purposes, and recording sex within the State's system of civil registration. This Bill risks bringing those distinct questions together without adequately resolving the consequences. The implications of the Bill also extend across legislation and public services. The Bill would propose to amend the Interpretation Act 2005. Section 5 proposes rules under which words importing the masculine or feminine gender would also import a non-binary gender, together with a corresponding provision concerning references to a non-binary gender in future legislation and statutory instruments. Again, that is not an insignificant or purely technical amendment. So much existing legislation and service delivery and so many Government systems operate on the basis of two gender categories. The introduction of an additional legal category, therefore, requires us to examine carefully how it interacts with existing legislation and with the systems through which public services are delivered. In addition, it is anticipated that significant costs would follow, requiring changes across Government Departments and existing systems. Those operational consequences need to be identified and understood before legislation takes effect, yet section 9 provides that the legislation would commence six months after enactment, or earlier if the Minister for Social Protection so orders. Given the breadth of the proposed changes, the Government does not believe we should create new statutory obligations without first establishing clearly how they would operate across the State. Employment and equality provisions also require proper consideration. The Bill proposes amendments to both the Employment Equality Act 1998 and the Equal Status Act 2000. These would introduce a new "sexual characteristics ground" relating to a person being intersex. The objective of ensuring protection from discrimination is important, but amendments to the State's equality framework need to be coherent with the wider body of equality law. They should be examined as part of a considered legislative process, including the practical and legal interaction with existing protections. A legitimate objective does not remove the need to ensure the legislative mechanism used to achieve it is sound. The better course is the work already under way. There is, therefore, an important distinction at the heart of the Government's position. We are not saying that the issue of non-binary recognition should not be considered. We are saying that a change of this breadth requires proper examination before legislation is enacted. We already have a mechanism through which that work is being undertaken. The impact assessment process under the national LGBTIQ+ inclusion strategy is examining how recognition of a third gender category could be accommodated across Departments and State bodies from policy and operational perspectives. That work gives us the opportunity to identify the legislative implications, the effects on civil registration, the implications for children and the safeguards that may be required, the operational consequences for Departments and public bodies, the changes required to State systems, and the associated implementation implications and costs. That is a more responsible foundation on which to make a significant change to our legal framework. In conclusion, I again acknowledge the absolute importance of the issues raised and assure the House that the Government is committed to progressing the legitimate interests of those seeking legal recognition. However, for the reasons I have outlined, the Government is opposing this particular Bill.

I commend Deputy Coppinger, on bringing this Bill forward, and all the groups and organisations that have been campaigning for legal recognition for intersex and non-binary people. To me, it is a very straightforward and simple issue. Nobody should be denied, dismissed, discriminated against or persecuted because of who they are. To fail to respect people for who they are and to fail to give them legal recognition is not just an issue for the people whose rights are being denied; it is also an issue for the whole of society because it is a slippery slope when you start to deny people their rights for who they are. That is why it is no coincidence that the leading aggressor against LGBTQ+ people is somebody like Donald Trump, who not only lacks respect for LGBTQ+ people, but is making war against everybody. He is making war against women, he is making war against people of colour, he is making war against Palestinians, he is making war against people of Islamic faith; you name it. He is making war against multiple countries. When you concede to monsters like Trump, it is a slippery slope, so it is important to stand up to them. I do not believe for one minute all the excuses that the Government has given for opposing this Bill, about how it is complicated and there is a better way of doing it and so on. If the Government has any legitimate concerns about technical or inadvertent consequences or whatever, they can be dealt with at the next Stage. The Government can bring forward amendments. The truth is that the Government itself, in the 2018 review, recommended legal recognition for non-binary and intersex people, and the Government has done absolutely nothing about it, and has no intention of doing anything about it, because it is leaning into and capitulating to the hate agenda of the far-right, Trump, and so on. That is the reality of what is going on and that is why the Government is opposing the Bill. It is shameful, quite honestly. It is absolutely shameful that the Government is doing it, but not surprising, given it is also leaning into so many of the other hateful aspects of the far-right agenda and the Trump agenda, whether it is in terms of how it deals with immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and so on. All of that is particularly shameful given our history. We do not believe the Minister. It is shameful but we intend to continue to fight for the basic rights of people to be respected, recognised and acknowledged for who they are, and for their rights to be vindicated accordingly.

The Gender Recognition Act 2015 was a significant achievement, making Ireland one of the first countries in the world to provide for legal gender recognition on the basis of self-determination. However, as many LGBTQI organisations have pointed out, that framework does not currently provide for non-binary people and leaves important issues affecting intersex people unresolved. One lesson I have always taken from my engagement with our community is that progress cannot stop with the achievements of the past. The 2015 Act was a good start, but the need remains to address the outstanding recommendations of the 2018 review process, including legal recognition for non-binary people and greater recognition of the experience of intersex people. This Bill is a positive step forward towards that and I thank Deputy Coppinger for bringing it forward today. We should recognise that other jurisdictions have already moved in this direction. The use of an X marker is now an established feature in a number of countries and is recognised within international travel documentation standards. Legal recognition matters in many very practical ways. When a person's identity documents do not accurately reflect who they are, it can create barriers to everyday life, whether that is in accessing services, travelling, applying for employment or engaging with public bodies. Advocacy organisations have consistently highlighted the impact that a lack of recognition can have on well-being, on safety and on participation in society. I want to highlight the experience of intersex people, a group whose voices are too often absent from public debate and whose experiences remain poorly understood. As a Minister, I was conscious of how little public awareness exists regarding intersex people and the challenges they face. Intersex people are not rare. They have always existed in every society and every community, yet our laws, institutions and our public services have absolutely failed to reflect that reality. This has meant that many intersex people continue to experience invisibility, misunderstanding and stigma throughout their lives. This Bill seeks to address some of these gaps. It would allow for the recognition of intersex people within our civil registration system and would provide explicit protection against discrimination on the grounds of sexual characteristics. These are practical, legal changes that would provide greater protection for a community that has been too often overlooked. This is more than a symbolic action. When official systems fail to acknowledge people's experiences, that has real-world consequences. It can affect access to services, interactions with public bodies, healthcare experiences and a person's sense of belonging in a society. Many intersex people continue to face stigma and barriers in discussing their health and personal experiences, even with their own healthcare professionals, and greater recognition can play an important role in challenging that stigma. We should also listen carefully to the concerns raised by intersex people regarding bodily autonomy and informed consent. While this Bill does not address every issue facing the intersex community, organisations representing intersex people have argued that it is an important step towards a society in which people have greater control over how they are recognised and understood by the State. I welcome this legislation. It is important we engage seriously and respectfully with the lived experience of intersex and non-binary people. They deserve to be heard, they deserve dignity and equal treatment and they deserve laws that recognise them as full and valued members of our society.

I welcome and support this legislation and thank Deputy Coppinger for bringing it forward. This Bill is about human rights for a small percentage of people. It is deeply disappointing - in fact, it is shocking - that the Minister and the Government are opposing this legislation. The Minister used a very poor excuse. I believe it is disingenuous because, as the Minister well knows, if he had difficulties with this Bill he could use the legislative process, pre-legislative scrutiny and the Oireachtas committee system to bring forward any amendments he deems necessary. He chose not to do that and to say we need further examination. The Government has had eight years for further examination since the review in 2018. I believe the Minister's position is, unfortunately and sadly, disingenuous. I remind the Minister that the review in 2018 proposed the introduction of gender recognition for children of any age under the principle of parental consent; that this be an administrative process, with a straightforward revocation process as currently exists for adults; and that voluntary family mediation be made available for those who wish to accept it. The Minister of the day accepted those recommendations. The recommendation with regard to young people aged 16 and 17 was to introduce a simplified process on the basis of self-declaration with parental consent, a straightforward revocation process and with voluntary family mediation available. Various other recommendations in that report were accepted by the then Minister, including a recommendation for a process for Irish citizens born in the Six Counties to be able to access Irish legal gender recognition. That was another recommendation which was accepted by the Minister of the day. The Minister has had six years to examine and investigate this. Unfortunately, it would appear that the Government is bending to the far right. Despite what the Minister might have said in his contribution, there is no indication of when the Minister might bring forward legislation of his own. The Minister should reconsider his position, accept Deputy Coppinger's legislation, and amend it during the legislative process and parliamentary scrutiny.

I thank Deputy Coppinger for moving this Bill. At its core, this issue is about people. It is about non-binary people who live in our communities, who are part of our families, and who are our friends, colleagues and neighbours. It is about something fairly basic: being recognised for who you are and being treated with respect. For most people dealing with the State, filling in a form or producing an official document is fairly routine. You tick a box and you move on. However, if neither of the boxes in front of you reflects who you are, then something that is straightforward for everybody else becomes another reminder that the system was not designed with you in mind. This can mean having to explain yourself. It can mean having to disclose personal information. It can mean repeatedly being put in a position where somebody else gets to question who you are. Over time, that takes its toll. While this Bill deals with legislation, certificates, registers and legal definitions, we should not lose sight of what sits behind all of that: real people and their experience. These are people who want to get on with their lives in exactly the same way as everybody else, who want to be treated decently and who should not have to fight with the State simply to have their identity recognised. That, in my view, is why this Bill matters. The Non-Binary and Intersex Recognition Bill would allow a person to have their gender legally recognised as non-binary. It would provide for an "X" marker alongside "M" and "F" on a gender recognition certificate. It would make changes to civil registration. It would provide explicit protection against discrimination for intersex people. It would make consequential changes to the way gender is dealt with in legislation. The core intent of the Bill is a simple one. If someone is non-binary, should the State continue to insist they choose either "male" or "female" for the purposes of legal gender recognition? I do not believe it should and that is why Sinn Féin will be supporting this Bill. For somebody who is not non-binary, this may sound like a small administrative change but we all know it means much more than that. It means that when you deal with the State, the State acknowledges that you exist as you are. It means that an official document can reflect who you are rather than forcing you into a category which does not. It removes one more situation in which somebody has to explain themselves, justify themselves, or disclose something deeply personal, simply because the system was not designed with them in mind. I believe that really matters. There are young, non-binary people growing up in Ireland today. There are adults who have spent much of their lives feeling there was no space for them in the legal framework of this State that we collectively created. There are parents who simply want their child to be happy, safe and able to live their life without being subjected to hostility or unnecessary barriers. Our politics should be capable of approaching these people and families with empathy. This does not mean we do not examine legalisation carefully; of course we should. There are aspects of this Bill which need to be worked through. If it proceeds, we need to look carefully at how it interacts with the existing rules on gender recognition. We need to maintain the distinction between being non-binary and being intersex because we know they are different things. There will be practical issues around State records and IT systems. There may be issues around international documents and systems. The proposed amendment to the Interpretation Act deserves detailed legal scrutiny because it could have implications across other areas of law. All of these issues are ones that can and should be examined on Committee Stage. We all know that if we want legislation to work, we have an obligation to scrutinise it. The problem is that the Government is not even allowing the Bill to get to Committee Stage. The Minister said earlier that the Government has a different way and that it is committed to change in this area. Where is it? Where is the Government's plan, because a lot of these changes were ones that were recommended? In fact the Government said it would make them when we first had the Gender Recognition Act, and then when we had the review of it, and people are still waiting. It really rings hollow for people when they hear that. If implementation has to be phased, then plan it properly. There are issues that can be worked through. For me, the most important thing is that we start from the right place and that right place is recognition and respect. I also want to say something about people who are born intersex, because being intersex and being non-binary are not the same. Intersex people are born with variations in sex characteristics. Their experiences and healthcare needs can be very different. This Bill would provide recognition for people who are born intersex - who do not identify as either male or female - and that recognition is really important. It is essential, too, that people who are born intersex receive the healthcare they need from birth to adulthood and that a model of care is in place which values the autonomy and dignity of that person, reserving decisions about their sex characteristics, where possible, for them to make as they develop and mature. As we develop policy in this area, we need to listen directly to intersex people. We should not simply talk about them in the Chamber but listen to them, their families and healthcare professionals with expertise in their care and ensure people are given clear information and have a meaningful say in decisions about their health and bodies. However, we need to urgently address another part of this debate. Legal recognition is really important, but so too is healthcare. We have had several debates on this issue in the House. The gender healthcare system in this State is broken beyond repair. A new model of care has been developed, but people who are intersex, non-binary and trans have been badly let down because the system simply does not exist. People are being put on waiting lists that go nowhere. They are waiting years and years. There are no options or pathways for them. As the Sinn Féin spokesperson on health, this concerns me very greatly. The reality is that intersex and non-binary people in Ireland have been failed by the lack of timely access to healthcare. They are waiting years. As I said, some people have, in effect, been told to put part of their lives on hold while they wait for the public system. We need to think about what that actually means. People may have spent years trying to understand how they feel and struggle to speak about it. People may have had difficult conversations with their families or the people closest to them. They may already be dealing with anxiety or isolation. When they eventually reach out for healthcare and supports, the State and supports are not there and they are faced with more waits. Waiting times can be measured in years, in many cases. It is simply not acceptable. Nobody in the State should have to wait years to simply begin a conversation about their healthcare. As I said, work is under way on a new model of care for gender healthcare. The new model needs to be brought forward, published and properly resourced, and needs to fundamentally improve the experience of the people using the service. There is little value in announcing a new model of care if the patient still cannot get through the door. Several principles should guide the new model. First, it must be person centred. The person seeking healthcare cannot be an afterthought in the design of the service, which is very often the case. Non-binary, intersex and trans people have to be involved. Their experiences of the existing service have to inform what replaces it. We need to know what went wrong, what the barriers are, why people waited so long, why it was the case they felt they had nowhere to go, what supports they now need and what we can make available. Lived experience should sit alongside clinical evidence and professional expertise. We need, of course, all of the specialists providing that care because gender healthcare cannot exist as an isolated service, disconnected from the wider health system. There needs to be primary care involvement. There are obviously specialist needs. People should not have to co-ordinate all of that themselves and navigate through a system only to find that the healthcare supports are not there. A functioning healthcare service should co-ordinate care around the patient. We need greater regional access. We need to build expertise and capacity so that people are not forced into enormous national bottlenecks. We need to know that specialist intervention is available. It was said earlier that, for adults, autonomy matters. Adults are entitled to information. They are entitled to understand the benefits and risks and make informed decisions about their healthcare and identity. I refer to the intent behind the Bill. That principle should not suddenly disappear simply because we are talking about healthcare or legal responsibilities and accessing forms in the same way that any of us do. We have to make sure that recognition of the individual, and accepting people for who they are when they tell us who they are, are central to how we combat these issues. I am very concerned by what I heard from the Minister who opened this debate. Over the past years, I have watched as a lot of promises have been made on reforming healthcare services, including the gender model of care which was promised. We are still waiting, and I suspect will be waiting for a long time before we see any changes and that new model of care. I would wager that it will be a long time - I would say we could measure it in years - before the Government comes back with any plan. The Government is sitting here today and is saying to Deputy Coppinger and those of us on this side of the House to trust it and it will come forward with a plan. I do not believe anybody believes that. I do not believe a single person in the Chamber, including the Minister of State who is sitting here, genuinely believes that the Government is going to do anything at all in this area. That means the Government is letting down a section of our society, albeit a very small section. As Deputy Boyd Barrett said, they are under attack from Trump and others. They are a small cohort of the population and deserve to be treated with respect. I do not believe they are being treated with respect when Ministers are being disingenuous and offer up any and every reason they cannot support a Bill when we know the issues raised can be dealt with on Committee Stage. I have raised some practical issues that I want to see addressed on Committee Stage. Scrutiny of any Bill is important. It is the last refuge of a scoundrel when Ministers come to the House and say they are not supporting a Bill because there are technical problems with it. It is an excuse. Let us call it what it is. It is not factual or based on goodwill, good faith or anything other than that the Government does not want to do anything in this area. That is the reality of the situation as far as I can see it. We have an opportunity, through Deputy Coppinger's Bill, to address this issue and we should do so. People who are non-binary have waited a long time for the Government to act. The Minister of State now needs to set out in his closing remarks exactly what the Government is going to do. Ministers cannot come to the House and say they will oppose a Bill and set out all of the reasons for that, and then not set out a plan of their own. I have not heard such a plan from the Minister of State and I want to hear it. For all of the reasons I have given, Sinn Féin will support the Bill as proposed by Deputy Coppinger.

This is an important debate. I thank Deputy Coppinger for bringing the Bill forward and allowing us to have this debate. It is probably the first time there has been a substantial debate in the Oireachtas around intersex, in particular, and non-binary issues in this way. That is historic and important and I want to congratulate the Deputy for all of the work she has done on this. I was sorry to miss the Minister's opening statement. The health committee is currently sitting. I was chairing it and wanted to step out to take part in this debate. I understand the Government will oppose the Bill, which is deeply disappointing. The Social Democrats support the intention of the Bill, and the need to recognise non-binary people and advance LGBTQI rights. It is simple and straightforward and the Government should be doing that. It would cost the State absolutely nothing, but the Government, as it has done time and again, refuses to address the issue. There has been a failure on the part of successive Governments to advance any rights in terms of intersex and non-binary people in the State. It is shocking, disappointing and deeply frustrating. I want to speak about the non-binary provisions in the Bill. Daire Dempsey, the executive director of TENI, stated that with the passage of the ground breaking Gender Recognition Act 2015, Ireland told trans men and women that the State believes them to be who they are. They went on to say that unfortunately, this is not extended to non-binary people who are not recognised in Irish law or Irish passports or any other document. When your documents do not match who you are, it is alienating, distressing and can be deeply unsafe. I hope the Minister of State hears that. Irish citizens have said that the failure of the State to recognise them is deeply distressing and can be unsafe for them. These are not new recommendations. Time and again, there have been recommendations to advance changes in the law because we know non-binary people are not recognised. It is very difficult for young people to get recognition under the Gender Recognition Act. Irish citizens in the North are not recognised under the Act. A review in 2018 made a series of recommendations, namely to legalise non-binary recognition, a cross-governmental review on the proposed legislative amendments and an impact assessment and for public bodies to take positive steps to improve the position of non-binary people. In 2019, the then Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection published a response to the proposed changes and said that a deeper level of impact assessment was needed. Some eight years later, the Minister has said the same thing, namely that we still need to do an impact assessment, to do more work and to look at this. Why does it take so long for the Government to do anything in this area? Why does it take until eight years after recommendations are made for it to make progress on what are simple, administrative changes that would recognise people in law? These are not fundamental reforms that are going to cost money but a simple change, yet we have seen no progress. This is despite these recommendations being included in the first national LGBTI strategy in 2019, the Department of Social Protection's statement of strategy for 2023 and so on. There has been recommendation after recommendation but a failure to implement that changes required to recognise non-binary people in the law. It is being done in other countries. Austria, Germany, Iceland and Malta provide for non-binary gender recognition and we should do it too. If other European countries are moving ahead with X markers on identity documents, then that is the approach we should take. The European courts have also delivered a series of judgments that recognise and reinforce the rights of trans and non-binary people, including in the area of gender recognition. In 2024, there was the Mirin case in which the court ruled name and gender marker changes made in one EU country must be automatically recognised by other EU states, meaning there is an obligation on the State to do that. There were a series of other cases, including the Mousse case, where the court recognised non-binary people’s existence in the EU for the first time. In this case, the court GDPR provides protections for trans and non-binary people and under EU law everybody is protected against identity discrimination, including non-binary people. Ireland’s inaction on non-binary recognition is therefore going against these trends at the EU level and ignores the recognition within EU law, so we need to see progress. There is a trend internationally and we should make progress on the recognition of non-binary people. It is similar with the intersex recommendations. Sorcha Ní Fhaoláin of Intersex Ireland said: Despite there being at least as many intersex people as there are people with red hair, most people including our GPs know very little about us. Recognition is an important part of addressing issues intersex people face as it is a step toward reducing stigma that keeps intersex people from being able to talk about our lives and our health with friends, family and even our doctors. It is really important we bring the voices of intersex and trans people into the debate because there is an underrepresentation of people from minority communities in the Oireachtas. Again, there is a failure to implement recommendations. The national LGBTI strategy had two intersex recommendations, neither of which has been progressed. In my previous role in LGBT Ireland, we produced a shadow report on Ireland’s LGBTI strategy and when we were doing that report we went through each of the actions in it and graded the Government on those from A to F. On all the trans and intersex actions, the Government got an F. It was willing to progress some of the other actions concerning lesbian, gay and bisexual issues but on the trans and intersex actions there was an absolute failure by the Government to even do the simple scoping exercise promised in terms of intersex people and data collection. That was in 2019 and there was an absolute failure to progress them. We have had years of failure and today is another disappointing step in the sad record of this Government and the previous one. There are people watching from the Gallery and from home. I want to let them know we will keep fighting for them even if the Government opposes it. We will keep advancing LGBT rights and people do not need the Minister’s approval to be who they are. We see you, you are loved, you are valued and you are respected. Let us keep fighting.

I thank Deputy Coppinger and her team for bringing forward this crucial legislation. I also thank all the organisations that fight so hard for the rights of the LGBTQI+ community and specifically today those who are fighting for the rights of non-binary and intersex people because it is a hard graft when you are part of a minority but are a minority within that minority and when that minority is more and more demonised by the day. The people in this minority are weaponised by political forces across our globe who are promoting a fascistic and gender-conservative world-view and using it as a wedge to advance their own right-wing views. That is exactly what is happening here. I listened to the Minister, Deputy Calleary, talk about the reasons this legislation will be opposed by the Government and there is nothing in the reasons. He spoke about implications extending well beyond the gender recognition system itself but that is the whole point. Legal gender recognition means people in these categories will no longer face the discrimination they currently experience. It means they will not have to have different experiences from the Minister of State and I when they are being asked for identification and filling in forms. I am irritated there are so many forms that will not accept the fada in my name. I can only imagine how much harder it is when every single time someone has to try to register, express an interest and record their presence in the world they are faced with this binary world-view which forces itself upon them again and again. The Gender Recognition Act delivered a milestone for this community. I worked in the rights and equality space at the time and remember my colleagues across Europe heralding Ireland as being so progressive on this and talking to me about the implications and how they could advance those things within their countries. Let us remember that when the 2015 Act was passed, the sky did not fall in. There were none of the disasters predicted from certain corners of our society. Not only that, there were no floodgates or any of the issues there was scaremongering about ahead of that Act being introduced. However, we have not only stalled since then as a society but gone backwards because so many other jurisdictions have gone ahead and recognised a third gender to facilitate this micro-marginalised, discriminated-against community. It was recommended, as many speakers have said, as part of the review and is operational and fully functioning in multiple jurisdictions. All the objections from the Government are about putting this on the long finger and none are things that cannot be dealt with at a later stage. I will speak briefly to the concept of the binary view of gender because not only is our law and policy lagging behind in this space but so too are we as politicians if we do not put forward a more comprehensive and progressive non-binary view of gender. Our younger generations are way ahead of us here and understand this in a way that means we will be there eventually and will ultimately live in a society that does not see women and men as completely binary genders. I will welcome and am so excited about the day when that happens but we have the opportunity as political leaders not only to push for it in our law and policy – and we should remember this is just a first step – but also to be political leaders for our constituents and our communities and to help others understand the misinformation flowing around this topic is vast and that we need to cut through it and help people understand this is a rights issue. As Deputy Rice said, this costs the Government nothing but right now it daily costs this community their respect, their dignity and their rights.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Labour Party about this especially important Bill. I thank Deputy Coppinger for bringing it forward and welcome our visitors to the Public Gallery. The Labour Party is immensely proud of its track record of supporting the LGBTQI+ community, including those who are non-binary and people who are intersex. The Labour Party legislated for gender recognition in government back in 2015. On 16 July, as part of statements on Pride, I outlined further legislation my party has brought forward, including the promise to hold a referendum on marriage equality, which as well know passed by a landslide. Many of the civil rights passed in this House were because of the Labour Party and it is something we are very proud to say. At the end of 2025, the Labour Party used its Private Members’ time to move a motion on transgender healthcare that called for a new model of trans healthcare that was not just designed for the community, but for the members of the trans community and their families. That day, as on many other days, I and my Labour Party colleagues called for safe and effective healthcare services that are patient-informed. Many trans, non-binary and intersex people simply do not feel listened to by government and they simply do not exist in legal and administrative systems. During the general election the Labour Party manifesto contained a commitment to address these very issues. It is something we are deeply committed to and which we will continue to bring forward and address. In reviewing this Bill, I spoke with friends and colleagues from the intersex community about the proposals it contains. They are incredibly happy to see their concerns and important issues are being debated in this House. Such aims will make a massive difference to their lives, which are currently exceedingly difficult day in and day out for them and their families. I know that from the conversations I have had with them, the issues that have been raised with me and the many other emails and messages I have received about this Bill in advance of today. That is why it is so important to have this debate in their Parliament to start recognising the needs and issues of these communities in our State. That is why we support the fundamental aims of this Bill to ensure that non-binary and intersex people can live their lives with dignity. However, as has previously been said by other contributors, this is not perfect legislation and we believe it will require significant changes via amendments if it progresses beyond Second Stage, which we sincerely hope it does. The Bill conflates intersex characteristics that concern innate physical sex characteristics with non-binary identity that concerns gender identity. We believe it would be more appropriate to address these issues through separate legislative provisions. As drafted, the Bill uses a single marker "X" for both groups, with different meanings on different documents. An X on a death certificate would signify a non-binary or intersex person, whereas on a birth certificate it would signify an intersex person. This has the potential to be problematic and to cause confusion. Intersex and non-binary people need protection and recognition and we must ensure that we do not inadvertently legislate to create more legal uncertainty. The Bill can also be interpreted to provide absolute discretion for a parent on whether or not to assign gender at birth. We believe there is a need for medical criteria here, and that there are also medical privacy concerns. As other contributors have said, let us have the debate on Committee Stage. Let us make sure that we have the debate and that we get it right. Non-binary and intersex people have waited long enough for the law to catch up with their lives. It is time for us to act. I repeat my party's steadfast commitment to advancing the rights of those who identify as non-binary and people who are intersex. They have waited too long for this debate. As I said previously in the House, we must stand with them today and every day. I look forward to working constructively with Deputy Coppinger on this very important Bill, and with all those who stand up for the marginalised in this House every single day.

I thank Deputy Coppinger for bringing forward this Bill. I am really disappointed in the Government's response and that it is not facilitating the passage of the Bill to Committee Stage. The Government is either in favour of the principle of recognising non-binary and intersex persons or it is not. It is a well-established principle in this House that even if there are difficulties with the technical aspects of a particular Bill, if the Government is in favour of the principle, it facilitates its passage to Committee Stage. It is really disappointing and indeed disingenuous of the Government to say that it is going to vote down the Bill. We need to be very clear on the message we want to send out today to the non-binary and intersex people in our communities and across the country. We want them to know that we stand with them and we support them in seeking the recognition that they are seeking and that they deserve. They are our family members, our neighbours and our friends. Their existence is not up for debate, even if many across the world are now trying to roll back the clock. It is critically important that we send that message out today to those who want to turn us back to the dark ages. We are not going back. Non-binary and intersex people deserve to watch a debate today in our national Parliament with the sensitivity and compassion that it demands. We in the Labour Party fundamentally believe in their right to live a life with dignity and to be protected from discrimination and stigma. They have a right to the proper medical assistance and support if they need it. Let us be in no doubt as to the challenges today for those who live as non-binary or intersex persons in terms of their health issues, stigma and safety issues. That is the position from which I believe we need to start this debate. We must remember we are talking about a very small number of vulnerable people, often invisible in many communities, but they are there and we need to start talking about them. As my colleague Deputy Wall said, we in the Labour Party are extremely proud of our record for LGBTQ+I people in this country; starting with the decriminalisation of homosexuality; the disregard for those with criminal convictions for homosexuality; same-sex marriage; the marriage equality referendum, and of course the groundbreaking Gender Recognition Act in 2015. I am not convinced such a Bill would go through these Houses if it were brought forward now, 11 years later. It is a testament to the commitment of the Labour Party in government at that time, and to the many groups working in that space, to get that Bill over the line. It is long past time that we had recognition for non-binary persons. It is eight years since the review of the 2015 Act took place when was a clear and unambiguous recommendation for non-binary recognition. We have had lots of welcome references to recognition for non-binary persons in the first and second national LGBTI inclusion strategies, but there has been no progress. Talk is cheap. The reality is the Government will be judged on the basis of its actions. I must be honest on looking at the detail of the Bill itself, there is a lot of work to be done to make sure the Bill could become operable and deliver for non-binary and intersex persons. I have concerns that there is a conflation of sex and gender in how the Bill is drafted. The terms "non-binary" and "intersex" are in some ways being used interchangeably when they are very much not. They are all technical details. The principle here is whether or not we believe in recognition. It is on the Government that it is voting down this Bill today. I thank Deputy Coppinger for lighting a fire under this issue because it has been there for a number of years, and we need to drive on with it. It would be remiss of me not to use this opportunity to raise the very real health issues for those who are trans, intersex and non-binary. Not every non-binary person will require medical support but some do and the reality is that we have a disgraceful and outrageous situation in this country where the National Gender Service has a waiting list of 2,500 people, some of whom have been waiting four and a half years. We had a situation last year where the waiting list was closed and it was only reopened due to ministerial intervention. The reality is that we have a failed system of care. As my colleague Deputy Wall said, last December we brought forward an important motion in the House calling for a new model of care. I am aware that work is ongoing with regard to the new model of care but it is disappointing that two of the groups that were part of designing the new model of care have walked away. We need to support the other groups that are within the framework. The reality is that we need to start delivering for trans, non-binary and intersex people in this country. We need to have a new model of care on the basis of dignity, respect and trust. It is wrong that people have to travel abroad for care. We need to start providing for those persons in our communities in our State. My last appeal to the Minister of State is to let us have the debate on Committee Stage on the details of Deputy Coppinger's Bill. Let us give the Bill a chance and work out the technical details. For it to fail at the first hurdle is frankly disgraceful and unacceptable.

Aontú believes in a compassionate pluralist Republic. All citizens are equal and valued no matter what their identity, ethnicity, religion or orientation. Everyone should be treated on the basis of their own individual character. Gender dysphoria is real and is not easy for anyone. We need to treat all our citizens with respect and decency but it is also really important that we have a society based on science and evidence. Gender ideology as represented in the Bill from the far left today is anti-science and anti-evidence. Proponents of this Bill think that they are fighting on the last front of human rights but in reality they are doing enormous damage to children and women. The Tavistock crisis highlighted the damage that this type of gender ideology does to children. Incredibly, Solidarity campaigned against the findings of Dr. Hilary Cass's report. Solidarity seemingly knows more that this doctor and the party continues to support the giving of puberty-blocking chemicals to children despite the massive health concerns that exist. Some 1,000 families are currently suing the Tavistock Clinic because their children were rushed into irreversible physical and psychological transitions without adequate assessment or mental health support. Health services across the world are reversing from this type of gender ideology at the moment. All major sporting organisations are reversing from this damaging gender ideology as well. The idea of putting men competing in women's sport is wrong. Women's sport has come so far in recent years, yet at this time it seems that this ideology thinks it is logical to put men competing in women's sport. Incredibly, Solidarity also believes that male sex offenders can be put into women's prisons. This is not a theoretical issue. Barbie Kardashian threatened to torture, rape and murder his mother. When he was put into a women's prison, he threatened to rape female prison guards and female inmates. Only in a world where an intellectual fashion such as this is more important than science, is it okay to put a male sex offender into a women's prison. This is another proof that the Gender Recognition Act is extremely damaging legislation. Instead of repealing this law, the Bill goes further in trying to create a third gender. Why stop at three? If we are going to ignore the sex chromosomes in every cell of every human being, surely the choice should be unlimited. The reality is that people oppose this ideology too. In 2016, Solidarity received 42,000 votes. In 2024, that figure collapsed to 13,000. Solidarity is falling into the same trap as so many left-wing parties across the world; it is ignoring the bread-and-butter issues facing the people it is meant to serve and getting completely distracted by these intellectual fashions.

Thanks for the advice

By taking these anti-science positions, we are doing the most damage to the most vulnerable. The question is whether the Government will follow its lead.

This is not a debate on the intricacies of what defines trans. I support the principles of the Bill. I am paired with Deputy James Lawless so I will not be voting today but were I voting on Second Stage, I would vote in favour of the Bill. I want to put this on the record. It is important that no intersex infant is forced by bureaucracy or parental pressure into rigid binary assignment at birth. Equally, our laws have ignored the lived realities of non-binary people, who deserve full legal recognition. I support both these aims. As my Labour Party colleagues have mentioned, as legislators we have a duty to ensure that our laws are structurally sound, and what they are saying is that we will possibly have to debate this on Committee Stage. The proposal in the Bill to use a single catch-all X marker inadvertently conflates two entirely different things. These are the physical biological sex characteristics identified at birth or puberty and the definition of a legal transition, which includes subjective gender identity. Medical data shows that fewer than 3% of intersex variations are visible at birth and a lot are discovered much later, during puberty or adulthood. All intersex people have a right to be identified as intersex at any stage. The Bill uses a single marker to address both a birth trait and an adult's self-determined identity, which I also respect. However, a newborn infant cannot possess a non-binary identity and forcing this identity to retroactively replace an objective biological marker at birth would create legal contradictions. The Gender Recognition Act needs to be reformed and updated. A person transitioning is not the same as a person who has a non-binary gender identity. These issues need to be discussed more and there are various international views on this. I support the Bill passing Second Stage and I urge the Government to support it. We need amendments to be discussed. We should create a specific biological marker at birth, such as an "I" marker for intersex infants and, later, adults, to accurately reflect biological variations and we should also have distinct and separate identification for non-binary adults who wish to legally declare their identity.

From all I can gather, the Government has made a decision to oppose the Bill today, which I fully support. Before I come to the Bill itself, I have to say it is becoming almost impossible to take People Before Profit seriously. Recently I saw one of its social media posts, which spoke about going from the streets of Paris to the streets of Dublin. At a time when the world has watched scenes of disorder, chaos and intimidation on the streets of Paris, and not the peaceful protests we do here, I find this message absolutely outrageous. Ordinary families want safe communities and small business owners want to be able to open their doors without fear. Yet here we are with politicians seeming to glorify street unrest. If this is the kind of politics they want to import into Ireland, they are completely out of touch with ordinary, decent people.

Like the fuel protests.

Peaceful protests all of the time. When we turn to the Bill, we see even more of the same ideological madness. The Bill asks the Irish people to set aside basic common sense and basic biological reality. It asks us to pretend that something understood by humanity since the beginning of time is now somehow up for debate. A child is not born non-binary; a child is born male or female. A boy is a boy and a girl is a girl. This is not an opinion, an ideology or a political slogan; it is a biological fact. What worries many parents is that activists are increasingly trying to drag children into debates that children should never be burdened with. Children should be allowed to be children. They should be allowed to grow up, develop naturally and enjoy their childhood without adults imposing confusion or ideological theories on them. When families across Ireland are struggling with the cost of living, when housing remains out of reach for many young people, and when farmers, fishermen and small businesses are fighting to survive, this is what People Before Profit has chosen to spend its time on. Instead of dealing with the real problems facing real people, it is pushing an agenda that most ordinary citizens neither asked for nor understand. Frankly, the vast majority of people listening to this debate will be asking themselves the simple question as to whether these people have completely lost the run of themselves.

People are struggling at the fuel pump and at the supermarket till. We have 17,885 people in emergency accommodation, 5,830 of whom are children. We have 1 million people on hospital waiting lists. However, the left has brought this Bill before the House. It is not concerned about a family living in a hotel room or a pensioner on a trolley but about the X on a birth certificate. I truly believe that any adult can live the life they want to choose and I will defend this and die defending it for people. People can do what they like once they are over the age of 18. I do not give a damn what they do so long as they are not hurting anyone else and I believe most people in the country feel the same way. A birth certificate records facts. It records when and where people were born and what sex they are. The Bill before the House seeks to stop this. The Deputy admits there are no exact figures for non-binary people in Ireland. According to a clinical definition of intersex, it is one birth in about 5,500, or ten babies each year in this country. This means there are ten families who are affected and who need support and the best medical advice and doctors available to them. What I truly believe they do not need is another box to tick on a form. I fail to understand the Bill's logic and ideology. The Bill is about self-identification but allows somebody else to put an X on a newborn's record. This mark will follow the child for the rest of their medical history. It will follow them into school, hospital, the Passport Office and, eventually, to their death certificate. We do not put a mark on a birth certificate when a child is born with a cleft palate or a physical deformity so why are we putting a mark on a birth certificate that will follow someone? We all know that our medical history is very important to all of us. I find the Bill defective. It is poorly put together. I have great admiration for any parliamentarian who brings a Bill to the House because it is not easy to do and I appreciate the work that goes into it. However, I would say to those people in this country who feel they are being shouted down for speaking truths and facts that feelings are real and facts are also real but when the two collide, the law must always stand on the side of facts. This is why we will vote against the Bill.

I acknowledge the importance of the issues raised during the debate and the legitimate interests of people seeking legal recognition. The Government recognises that legal recognition for non-binary people is a significant issue that deserves careful and serious consideration. We also recognise the importance of ensuring that people born intersex are properly protected from discrimination. The question before us, however, is not whether these objectives are worthy because they are; the question is whether the Bill provides a clear, workable and sufficiently considered framework for achieving them. The Government's position is that it does not. The Bill would make substantial changes to several major legislative frameworks, including the Gender Recognition Act 2015, the Civil Registration Act 2004, the Interpretation Act 2005, the Employment Equality Act 1998 and the Equal Status Act 2000. Its consequences would, therefore, extend well beyond the recognition of a non-binary gender. Serious and obvious unresolved issues remain. Section 2 appears to create a right for every person resident in the State to change their recorded gender to female, male or non-binary without an age qualification. This raises fundamental questions about the safeguards that currently apply to children under the age of 18. Changes of this significance should result from deliberate consideration of children's circumstances and the protections that may be required rather than arising unintentionally from broadly drafted legislation. The proposed changes to civil registration are also far-reaching. The provisions relating to births, stillbirths, adoptions and deaths would alter how sex may be recorded, including through the introduction of an X entry. This risks conflating two separate matters: the legal recognition of a person’s gender identity and the recording of sex within the State’s civil registration system. There are also unresolved questions concerning the Bill’s interaction with existing legislation, public service delivery and Government systems, including important health, demographic and statistical functions. Any changes must, therefore, be assessed carefully, including their potential implications. Significant operational work and expenditure would be required across Departments and State bodies. Yet the Bill provides for commencement six months after enactment, or earlier by ministerial order, without first establishing how these changes could be implemented consistently across the State. The proposed equality protections must likewise be coherent within the wider body of equality law. The objective of protecting intersex people from discrimination is important but a legitimate objective does not remove the need for a sound and effective legal or legislative mechanism. These are not minor technical details that can responsibly be resolved after enactment. The better course is to complete the impact assessment work already under way under the National LGBTIQ+ Inclusion Strategy II 2024-2028. That process can identify the legislative, administrative, financial and operational implications and provide the evidence required to develop an appropriate and implementable framework. The Government is not closing the door on legal recognition. It is insisting that any change of this importance must be carefully designed, evidence-based and capable of working in practice. For those reasons, while respecting the intention behind the Bill and the many very genuine and substantial contributions made during the debate today, and particularly respecting the people whose interests it seeks to advance, the Government cannot support the Non-binary and Intersex Recognition Bill 2026 as drafted.

I thank the TDs who committed to support the Bill and for speaking today. I again commend the many groups represented here. I am very sorry they have had to come here today and to listen to what the Government has just said. It is going to oppose a Bill which fits in with commitments that it has given itself in the past but it is proposing absolutely no alternative, no roadmap, no pathway and no nothing. That is really shocking. It is horrific for people to have had to sit and listen to the last ten to 15 minutes as well. I will just take up some of the issues the Minister raised. First, he spoke about the key reasons for opposing the Bill, and said that no age is indicated in terms of transitioning to X in the gender recognition certificate. The Minister knows the Government could propose an age on the next Stage. He should cop on. If the Minister has a proposal for an age, he can put it forward on the next Stage, so that is absolutely no excuse. Second, the Minister said we need a very detailed examination of how this proposed legislation would interact with the State and with other legislation the State has enacted. Obviously, when any Bill comes along, it is going to interact and need an examination. That does not prevent the Government from allowing the Bill to progress. The Government has been examining this since 2018. That is the reality of it. What has the Department been doing for the past seven to eight years that it has not got a handle on that? I believe that just as other people said, the sky would not fall in if Departments had to facilitate M, F or Other in recognising people who they interact with, for example. I do not see any big fallout or interaction from that. In terms of birth certificates, the Minister said a parent could register their child as a different sex from what was medically determined. Now, I am not sure why parents would choose to do that, to be honest. I do not see that arising very much at all. To be honest, we live in such a binary world that it is very unlikely. The Minister knows that the issue here is that we currently have a situation where medical surgery is being done on babies. It was interesting to hear about the dangers to children. The only surgery happening on children in this country is what is being done to intersex babies or children who do not fit the male and female binary in hospitals. Neither the Minister nor the Minister of State even referred to that, by the way, in their speeches. This proposal is to facilitate and recognise intersex people. Some people in the Labour Party and so on have asked why we conflated the two things. The reason is that when we were looking at non-binary recognition, we felt it was important to recognise intersex people. The only way this can be done is by also allowing for that to be done in birth certs. Mainly, however, it is to give parents the space so that they are not forced down the horrific types of surgery that have been done on children in the past. This legislation is also about recognising anyone outside the gender binary in legislation. We would not even be talking about intersex people today if I had not put that into the Bill. This is the first time, probably, that there has been any discussion in the Dáil of intersex persons and the fact that they exist. Now, it would be laughable, if it was not actually serious, to listen to Aontú talking about science. Its Deputies are the ones who are being unscientific. It is a scientific reality that not all children are born with male or female characteristics. That is just a scientific reality. The Government agrees with that. That is why it signed up to the Council of Ministers' statement on equal rights for intersex persons. The Government does not disagree with that but it is just not going to do anything about it, it would seem. Regarding some of the other stuff that was said, it was like transphobe bingo from Aontú there. Misogyny, transphobia and racism are key characteristics of that party. I certainly am not going to take any lecture from members of Aontú about what would happen. First of all, the way they were talking about rape was very triggering for a lot of people and they really should be a lot more careful. I am not going to take any lessons about dangers to women. Women are mainly in danger from men, and it is usually men they know. It is sometimes councillors they know as well, which has, I know, arisen with Aontú. Misogyny and transphobia go hand in hand, so I am not going to spend any longer on it. In terms of Independent Ireland asking why we are bringing this Bill forward with all the problems in the world, we can do two things at the one time. It is very possible. We can actually stand for recognition and human rights and care about people’s economic well-being as well. When I introduced the first repeal Bill in this Dáil, which was initially obviously voted down, except by a tiny handful of Members, I was also fighting on the issue of the housing crisis. The two things can actually go hand in hand. In terms of some of the nonsense that we heard, I did state a figure. I said the UN estimates that 1.7% of people in the world are intersex. That is 1 in 500. It is not 1 in 10,000, as was stated. What I said was there are no figures for people identifying as non-binary in the same way. In the last few minutes, I want to talk about some of the countries that have moved forward. Starting with non-binary recognition, these countries include Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Malta, the Netherlands, Canada, Costa Rica, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Pakistan, Nepal, India and Bangladesh. In the US, 22 states have non-binary recognition, even under Trump and his fascistic regime. There is intersex recognition in a number of countries as well, and about nine countries have banned so-called corrective surgeries on babies, which is basically a genital mutilation that is being done. It is being done in Ireland. I would like to get figures from the Minister on how often it has been done in this country. I suppose we really have to listen to the testimonials. Numerous people have contacted us in support of this Bill since it was launched. I will read few of the messages communicated to us. One person stated: I find getting healthcare, going to the dentist, really participating in society on a day-to-day basis difficult without recognition ... things as simple as not having options besides 'mr ms mrs' in being addressed ... to feeling safe to inform healthcare professionals of my gender identity because there's no legal basis for them ... I avoided going to get my first cervical check for over 5 years. Another stated: ... we don't exist when it comes to trans healthcare and often doesn't ever mention [being] queer to any doctor for fear of stigma. I've had even the most progressive clinics asking for pronouns and then ignoring ... I am afraid of being out at work, so my social transition is limited ... The most important thing is there is no access to trans healthcare, unless one travels and has money. The latter point is not dealt with in this Bill, which I absolutely acknowledge. This was about legal recognition first but those are huge issues as well. Another person stated: As an intersex woman, I've spent much of my life living in a society that had no language for people like me. This Bill says that our lives deserve legal recognition too. It won't fix everything, but it is a step towards an Ireland where intersex people no longer have to argue that we exist. I genuinely believe that much of the physical, psychological and sexual abuse I experienced from childhood into adulthood was made possible by a society [and State not recognising us] Ireland was one of 46 countries that signed up to intersex equal rights recognition last October but it has not actually done anything to bring it about. I do not believe any of the excuses that the Minister of State gave hold any water. On the great examination that the Department is doing, I will just refer to what is stated by the bodies that deal most with trans and intersex people. TENI, as others have mentioned, has referred to the progress that has been stalled for a decade. There is the matter of the cross-departmental review. In 2019, the then Minister for employment and social protection published a response to the call for proposals for change. No substantial progress has been made to implement the recommendations in the 2018 review. For how long are trans, non-binary and intersex people going to have to wait for the Government to do a single thing? I urge people to campaign because the Establishment has never reacted unless brought under significant pressure. It is a really horrific ask of people who belong to such an oppressed minority to come out and have to campaign like this. The Government should just do it. The Minister of State heard the crap we had to listen to. It is not fair to ask people to take things on themselves when the Government should be doing it.