World Wide Wave

25 Feb 2013

Ireland: “A good place to be gay now”

Europe

“Ireland is a good place to be gay now,” proclaims Jerry Buttimer. Mr Buttimer is the first openly gay TD from the Fine Gael party in Ireland.

W3JOY interviewed Mr Buttimer about the upcoming constitutional convention regarding same-sex marriage. “Same-sex marriage is not just a human right, but it’s an entitlement of all citizens.” He is excited about the Constitutional convention, but still concerned, ” The biggest fear that I have is, despite the changes we’ve made in the context of civil partnership, is that it will fall short in a referendum.”

We also speak with Tiernan Brady, Director of Policy Change at GLEN about the Convention, the role of the Catholic church, transgender issues and workplace diversity.

Mr. Brady comments that the LGBT-friendly Google and Facebook are having a big impact:

“We have a lot of multinationals from all over the world who use Dublin as a base, especially high-tech companies like Facebook and Google. They have very large LGBT work groups already within their staff and they have very good support programs.”

He discusses the lauch of GLEN’s Diversity Champions program,  which rates employers right across Ireland. “It’s about making sure we can mirror that right across the workforce so that the daily experience of lesbian and gay people in Ireland is one of full equality where people can get on with their lives without fear of harassment or fear of victimisation.”

Read more, listen to the podcasts and comment on W3JOY’s Ireland webpage.

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