Bill stopping males being housed in Irish female prisons passes first stage

A bill to amend the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) and stop males being housed in female prisons in Ireland has passed the first stage.

The Bill was drafted by Laoise de Brún BL and introduced by Peadar Tóibín TD (Aontú).

This amendment bill has been signed by 10 TDs including Fianna Fáil’s Willie O’Dea.

Laoise De Brún BL, CEO and founder of The Countess, speaking after Deputy Tóibín introduced the Bill without opposition, said: “The women whose lives of poverty, chaos and abuse led to incarceration have so seldom a voice in the public sphere or Oireachtas.

"Today, we advocated for those women. They are the most vulnerable group in our society, 95% of whom are non-violent.

"They do not deserve a double punishment of having males housed in their prisons. We are thrilled that this bill has successfully passed first stage. Now let us finally have the debate we must have on this issue.”

The Gender Recognition Act 2015 (GRA) has led to the housing of male prisoners in female prisons, in Ireland, including sex offenders and paedophiles.

Ms De Brún added: "No man should ever be housed in a female prison regardless of how they identify.

"Men and women have been housed in separate prisons since the Prisons (Ireland) Act 1826. One of the many unintended consequences of the 2015 GRA has been a reversal of this policy of sex separation, which was brought about by reformers like Elizabeth Fry to protect female prisoners from male prisoners.

"The only solution is to limit the scope of the effect of the Gender Recognition  Certificate to protect women from being at risk from sharing prisons with men who identify as women.

"Denmark has a similar system of gender self-identification and yet has been able to protect female prisoners and house prisoners according to biological sex. The proposed Bill would give legal protections to the Irish Prison Service and allow prisons to be reverted to single-sex institutions," said Ms De Brun.

Laoise De Brún added the GRA had already seen male sex offenders and paedophiles housed in Limerick women’s prison.

"This has caused harm to both the women who are incarcerated there and to the female prison officers, who have expressed concern about their own safety in light of threats made by one of these violent men," she said.

She added: "A policy change in Britain, triggered by the public outcry that ensued when a male rapist was housed in a female prison in Scotland, was predicated on their having no legal requirement to house trans-identified men in female prison.

"That is not the case in this jurisdiction, where we have full, unfettered self-ID and a legal requirement to treat all men who acquire gender recognition certificates as though they were women.

"The only solution is to limit the scope of the Gender Recognition Certificate, which is what we have done in my drafting of this amendment. It behoves legislators to vote to close the gaps that are now obvious to all reasonable people and to amend the GRA to exclude prisons from the scope."

"These women are the most vulnerable in society, those kept in the care and custody of the state, 95% of whom are non-violent. The Countess has long viewed the granting of a Gender Recognition Certificate as an access-all-area pass for predators, chancers, transgressors, and cheats, and nowhere are the consequences felt more viscerally than in prisons.

"In the Irish prison system, and in all prison systems beholden to gender self-ID, the data is the same and irrefutable. Either trans-identified male prisoners are more likely to be sex offenders than other male prisoners, OR sexual predators are using this loophole to get sent to female prison. It must be one of these two things. And this loophole must be closed."