No room for ‘political agendas’ in u16 gender change – Senator

Senator Ronan Mullen has questioned the new Minister for Children’s call to allow u16s to change their gender, saying it must be about children’s welfare not media campaigns.

Senator Mullen told The Irish Catholic that “there should be no change in this area without a public debate and careful scrutiny of the issues in the Dáil and Seanad.”

Senator Mullen said that any decisions must be evidence based and with children’s welfare and best interests to the forefront.

“Anything that happens here, as in other areas of medicine, would require a thorough evidence base,” he said.

“There is no room for political agendas here. This is about children’s welfare, their best interests.”

In light of this, Sen. Mullen described as “strange” Minister O’Gorman’s intent to downgrade the level of medical care draw for assisting young people.

“He seems to agree that it’s a medical issue if he is talking about GPs,” said Mr Mullen, “but it is strange to me that he would not want specialist care for young people in something so important.

“I can’t imagine that much attention was paid by this by the bigger parties in their rush to get a government together but something like this certainly can’t go through on the nod.”