‘Cowardly smear’ of children’s minister is part of witch-hunt, says Tatchell
PETER Tatchell has spoken out in defence of Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman and said they were both victims of homophobia.
Tatchell, an LGBT activist in the UK, condemned “fabricated allegations and homophobic slurs” on social media following the publication of a photograph of the two men at a Pride March in Dublin in 2018.
The new minister made a statement recently about online attacks against him since the publication of the photograph and said he would not have posed for a photograph with Tatchell if he had been aware then of controversy surrounding the campaigner’s views on the age of sexual consent.
The minister said the public event in 2018 was his first and only meeting with Peter Tatchell. In a statement to the Sunday Independent, Tatchell said: “Critics are unfair and cowardly to smear Roderic O’Gorman because he once had his photo taken with me. It smacks of a McCarthyite-style witch-hunt to tar him with guilt by association. He did not know my views on consent issues and he’s never endorsed them.
“Both Roderic and I have been subjected to a Twitter ‘lynch mob’ — some of whom have sent vitriolic, abusive messages, including fabricated allegations and homophobic slurs. I’ve received chilling noose images, which makes me worry for my safety.
“What I’ve said about paedophilia and the age of consent has been grossly misrepresented on social media in the past week. I unreservedly condemn child sex abuse. It is abhorrent. As I argued in the Irish Independent in 2008, it is best if young people do not have sex at an early age. They should wait until they are older and more mature.
“I believe the age of consent should remain at 16 but consenting sex involving teens under 16 should not be prosecuted, providing there is no more than two or three years difference in their ages. This is the law in Germany, Switzerland and Israel. It means that consensual sex between persons aged 14 and 15 is not prosecuted, but sex between a 14-year-old and a person aged 18 or older remains a serious criminal offence.
“This tiered age of consent system protects young people against sexual exploitation by adults,” he said.
O’Gorman said: “There are no circumstances in which sex between an adult and a child is acceptable.” The minister said online claims he is unsuitable for his role because he is gay are “homophobic”.
CRECHE fees are set to be capped so no parent is paying more than their monthly mortgage repayment for their children to be looked after.
New Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman is hoping to outline a proposal to cap childcare fees within the next year to ensure parents do not face disincentives to going back to work.
Under the proposals, increased subsidies to private childcare providers would be linked to the fee cap. “When childcare becomes more expensive than the mortgage, that becomes a massive disadvantage, a disincentive,” he told the Sunday Independent.
“We want to be in a position where parents are no longer pressured by the fact they have to pay a very substantial childcare bill.”
The new Green Party cabinet minister is promising radical reforms to the sector including a new state agency, Childcare Ireland, which will be tasked with reducing costs and improving standards.
O’Gorman wants an analysis of the caps in place in other European countries and a proposal to put to government within the next year.
“I think that’s absolutely something we want to achieve, we want to get a clear vision as to what sort of fees parents will be paying,” he said. “In principle, I’ve no issue with capping fees.
“We have to let the work be undertaken to actually see how the existing National Childcare Scheme could operate to provide those subsidies. You’d be linking increased subsidies to the various providers with the cap on fees.”
He said Childcare Ireland would look at the issue of affordability, as well as look at the quality of creche facilities, accessibility and raising overall standards. Ultimately, the Government will look at potentially developing a stateled childcare sector, he said.
“I think as we get increased state support and increased budgetary support each year into that system, we can actually target it more effectively, but also ensure that all parents benefit,” he said.
O’Gorman, a new TD for Dublin West, said the Government was making up for years of “no state involvement in the early years sector, which is completely at variance with what the rest of Europe is doing”.
“We are catching up and [we’re] going to be catching up for a long time going forward and it is an issue that’s of huge concern to parents. At every second door in Dublin West during the election, the issue of childcare — the fact that it’s more than a mortgage payment — was being raised with me and that’s what this Government needs to address.”
He said he would look to broaden existing schemes such as Early Childhood Care and Education and the National Childcare Scheme to make sure more parents have access to subsidies. “You can use whatever additional resources you have to target particular groups, particular income brackets, or you can use it to actually widen the entire accessibility of the scheme,” he said.
As the Minister for Children, Disability, Equality and Integration, O’Gorman also has responsibility for the new Government’s commitment to abolish Direct Provision in the next five years.
He said the controversial system of accommodating asylum seekers solely hits minority groups and while it was not designed as a racist system, “its impact is racist” and that it does not provide “any degree of dignity” to people in it.
‘I’ve no issue with capping creche fees’
A white paper on what the new accommodation system for people in the international protection process will look like will be published by the end of the year.
O’Gorman said approved housing bodies and the State will play a direct role in the provision of housing to asylum seekers.
“I think the first element is that it will be not-for-profit and I think that has to be a clear element that this idea that people are making money from an inhumane system is not acceptable,” he said.
He said there has been “no political will” to abolish the system but that it now exists with the specific commitment in the programme for government. “No one ever seriously tried to change it in that 20year period,” he said.
O’Gorman said he wanted to introduce a number of reforms by the end of this year, including reducing the time asylum seekers must wait to apply for work and making it easier for an asylum seeker to get a driver’s licence.
He said ideally an asylum seeker application should be processed within 12 to 18 months of the person arriving in the country.
“We should be providing people with accommodation that meets basic human rights and basic standards of dignity and that’s what I am proposing to do,” he added.