Malcolm Byrne: Pride, Progress and Holding Meta to Account

I often wonder when, you know, you get to stand on, why are we having these statements on Pride? And I reflect kind of in many ways in my own political journey, where I remember as a student, you know, as somebody who was young when I saw Margaig and Quinn decriminalize homosexuality, and certainly as somebody who was very closeted at the time, it did have a big impact on me in terms of challenging my own thinking. My own experience was, even though that I never hid my sexuality, I ended up being outed by the media in 2006. And, you know, what struck home to me about that was the support that I got from family and friends and local community. And I knew the real Ireland that existed then. In 2012, I remember at Fianna Fáil Ardais, where we became the second party to support marriage equality, and interestingly, the first to support same-sex adoption at the time. The joyous occasion of the marriage equality referendum in 2015, and now to a situation whereby we have an equality caucus, a cross-party equality caucus here in Leinster House. And Minister, I want to pay tribute to your leadership in that regard. And in many ways now, it's so unremarkable, you know, that we have so many members of these houses who identify as LGBT, or indeed as allies, and, you know, no one really passes much of a remark on it. I see it within my own local communities. I look at the likes of the Vault Youth Centre in Arklow. I look at Gore Youth Needs Group, FDYS, who all have LGBT support groups within our communities. I want to pay a particular tribute to Creagh College, who have done an incredible amount of work with the LGBTQ allies support group in that school, where they have now achieved the belong to quality mark in the school, and incredible work by the teachers and the students to ensure that it's a really inclusive school environment, and so many schools are doing that. I was at Gore Library this week, and flying proudly outside the library, as indeed outside many libraries, at the Pride flag, with a lot of books celebrating that, and ensuring that our libraries are inclusive spaces. So I look at all of that progress, and I kind of wonder then, well, you know, do we still need to discuss these issues and raise these issues? And yet I'm quite certain by hearing even some of the comments in here today that we do. I have to say I have no intention of pulling up the ladder on my trans brothers and sisters, you know, because we still have a long way to go, particularly in areas like trans health care, and there's a responsibility of those, you know, who have been on our own journey, to be supportive of those who still feel that the state is not recognizing their needs, or being sufficiently supportive. I have to say as well, and I think that you know, there's been reference to social media, I'm deeply concerned around Facebook, and I think META are not taking sufficient level of action, where Facebook used to be a, you know, very much a community space, and indeed for those who identified as LGBT to be able to come together, we are now seeing hate, and particularly homophobia, and discrimination, and racism, and being amplified, and I have found that in every single instance where I report hate and Facebook as being against the community guidelines that are set out, in the last year or two, in every single case, Facebook is upholding it. So I think there has to be a challenge placed to META, and I would say that if Facebook are taking part in the pride parade in Dublin this weekend, they need to look at themselves and ask what are they doing as a company to be able to tackle, because it's, you know, Facebook which was always an inclusive and welcoming space, in my view has now gone nearly as bad as X, in terms of fostering division and hatred. I also think it is important that while we are fortunate in this country that we have come so far, that we need to look at what continues to go on around the world. It is abhorrent that there are still countries around the world, not alone where same-sex relations, or even an assumption that if you have a same-sex attraction, not alone is it illegal, but there are countries where it remains punishable by death, and I think we have a moral obligation to continue to call out those countries, and those countries include Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, and indeed other parts of the world where Sharia law, including a number of regions of Nigeria, where it is implemented. And I would say in terms of our foreign policy, and I do commend the Department of Foreign Affairs on this, when it comes to making decisions around overseas development aid, we should put a requirement in that citizens are respected regardless of whom they love, or indeed who they're even purported to love. I do think as well in terms of the European Union, and it has to be a union of values as well as of interests, I certainly think we are now seeing progress in Hungary, where we had seen a lot of discrimination against members of the LGBT community, but I think for countries on the accession pathway, those values also need to be very clearly communicated, and I welcome the fact, for instance, that I think it was last weekend, the Pride parade in Kyiv was 10 times larger than normal, that there is within Ukraine a recognition that it needs to adhere to those values of inclusiveness. This is, as others have said, a republic, we are judged by how we treat all of our citizens, and for those who are LGBTQ, who identify as LGBTQ, or who are allies, I say happy Pride.