Paul Murphy: Calls for Sex Education Reform After Dáil Vigil
Paul Murphy addressed the Dáil about male violence against women and argued the recent vigil for Aisling Murphy should be a watershed moment. He called for factual, consent-based, age-appropriate and LGBTQ+ positive sex education and for confronting social structures that perpetuate male violence.
Vigil and public reaction
The speaker described attending the silent vigil outside the Dáil, saying thousands gathered in a powerful, pregnant silence marked by sorrow for Aisling Murphy and compassion for her family, and by anger at a society that allows violence by men against women to persist.
Scale of the problem highlighted
Paul Murphy referenced the long-term toll of male violence, noting the repeated deaths of women over decades and citing the statistic of 244 women killed since 1996, urging recognition that violence against women is perpetuated by men and by unequal social and economic power structures.
Call for objective sex education
He focused on the need for objective sex education in primary and secondary schools - factual, consent-based, age-appropriate and LGBTQ+ positive - arguing that without this foundation efforts to change misogynistic attitudes will fail.
Legislative history and obstacles
The speaker recalled that a bill on objective sex education proposed by Solidarity People Before Profit passed second stage four years ago but has since stalled between second stage and committee stage, and warned that the curriculum cannot be guaranteed if school ethos blocks delivery.
School ethos and official responses
He noted recent interventions from the Catholic bishops on LGBT issues and said the minister had defended the centrality of school ethos. He also referenced the Taoiseach's response to Deputy Smith and rejected the suggestion that teacher training alone is the main issue, insisting the ethos must be challenged to ensure delivery of objective sex education.
We publish thousands of recordings to make Irish politics transparent and resistant to manipulation. Spotted an error? Report it — together we are building a reliable archive of Irish politics.
Thanks, Ciarán Comhairle, and thanks a lot to Sinn Fein for bringing forward this motion. There has been a lot of talk about watershed moments, and I agree that this moment has the potential to be a watershed moment, it can be a watershed moment, and it must be a watershed moment. And what struck me last week, attending the vigil outside the Dáil, is that often you go to large assemblies and they're powerful, and they're powerful partly because people are shouting and making noise and so on. But what was so powerful about the vigil last week was the silence. There was just a very, very profound, long silence as people just flooded up. There must have been 10,000 people in front of the Dáil on an evening after work. And it was a silence which was pregnant with, obviously, a deep sorrow for Aisling Murphy, for the hundreds of women who have been killed by men since 1996, 244, and with compassion for Aisling Murphy, with compassion for Aisling's family, friends, wider community. But I also felt with anger, anger at a society that perpetuates sexism, misogyny, which allows this sort of violence by men against women to persist and continue over and over. And the same struck me in Tala later on that evening, and then you have that replicated across the country, tens of thousands of people who really have the potential to force a change on this issue. And the bottom line is that it is past time to recognize that violence against women, as it's often referred to, is perpetuated by men, and that it is men and the unequal economic and social structures and power dynamics of capitalism that perpetuate male dominance over women. And they will have to change if we are to end the scourge of male violence against women. I want to just focus in my remaining time on one particular aspect, which is the question of objective sex education. Because if we can't start by teaching children, in an age-appropriate way, a primary and secondary school, basic, objective sex education, factual, consent-based and focused, LGBTQ plus positive, well, then we really aren't going anywhere. If we are ever to have a chance of changing the misogynistic and sexist attitudes that perpetuate male violence, then we absolutely need to have objective sex education. But the bill was proposed by Solidarity People Before Profit four years ago, it was passed at second stage, and since then it has languished in the Bermuda Triangle between second stage and committee stage. Since then, the Catholic bishops have come out with a new syllabus saying that the Church's teaching a relation to marriage between a man and a woman cannot be omitted when discussing LGBT, LGBT issues, and the minister said, it was then Minister McHugh, said the ethos of the school is central to any curriculum. The Taoiseach, earlier on, responded very positively to Deputy Smith's question, that's welcome, saying yes, we need to deal with that, but then he suggested the main issue was training the teachers. The central issue is the ethos. If we don't challenge the fact that the ethos can stand in the way of the delivery of objective sex education, you can have the best curriculum in the world, you can have the best training of the teachers in the world, but you cannot guarantee that people get the objective sex education that they need to get. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for downloading 🙏
If you publish this material on social media, we would be very grateful if you tagged VideoParliament. It helps us reach more people and keep building a transparent archive of Irish politics.
