Ireland - "Transgender childcare worker sacked for offering child 'a free kiss' as a prize"

Gosh, that sounds awful CrepituErgoSum. The childcare crisis is just another in a long list of failures by this government.
I think he was caring for after school children so this would be short hours on minimum wage. He may well have been the only applicant. In which case not taking him on would likely have led to a discrimination case. But if they had checked his social media it would have raised red flags. So, in that situation, they were between a rock and a hard place.
But safeguarding has to be the number one priority. Thankfully those children were old enough to tell their parents what was happening.

Briefly de lurking to say this gives me the cold shivers and makes me feel a bit better about the fact I can't get any childcare.

But to those talking about "choosing candidates" and a "selection process" etc you do need to know that Irish childcare is in crisis. Like no places at ALL crisis.

The only ideology in play in hiring him may be the ideology that says childcare workers must be paid the minimum wage so someone can make a profit. The idea that multiple people would even apply for a job in childcare when so many other options pay significantly more is probably not realistic. I think many places will take literally anyone. It's just a matter of time until we have a childcare crime like those with the paedophiles in Australia and in UK.

One chain of centres apparently just calls parents up every Friday and says "no staff, so. no toddler room next week" and the mothers (always the mothers) then have to take annual leave to stay home and mind their kids. This is due to the utter inability to attract and retain staff.

Also the parents may not be "cool with it" so much as "desperately need to keep paying the mortgage or rent to keep their family housed". Childcare is just totally inaccessible for many of us right now and many women (always the women) are being forced to leave the workforce entirely. An impossible choice when that may mean you lose your housing as a result.

Yet another way that the failure to adequately fund childcare is harming women and kids.

Never ceases to amaze me how naive, stupid and ignorant some people are, if course he broke all the rules of safeguarding and decency. Men who pretend to be women are acting out a sexual fetish, breaking boundaries and doing what they know they should not is the point of a fetish, so why would any sane adult allow such a male to work with children? Let's hope that his behaviour was no worse than what is reported here, though tbh I'd be surprised. Whoever runs that nursery had bettet hope that too. Or get sued by furious parents for their crass ignoring of all sensible safeguarding.

I'd say you're right about no-one dared... Mr Starshine would have had his antennae out for any hint that he was not offered the job because he is trans, nobody wanted to #beunkind and/or get sued.

But did anybody ask the basis questsions: Does he have impressive qualifications? references? Was he Garda vetted? Did they look at his social media profiles?
Or was all that due diligence waved away because of the magic of his transness?

There are so many questions to be asked.

It's ironic that there is an investigation into a case of historical sexual abuse of children going on at the moment - a basketball coach who abused boys in the 1980s, but wasn't convicted, and imprisoned, until 2016.
All the usual comments about 'dereliction of duty' by the police and safeguarding authorities, and lessons learned.

Meanwhile, the case of a man presenting as a woman getting a job with small children and engaging in unacceptable behaviour with them, going on now, in 2026, is largely ignored.

If was the local Catholic priest who was kissing children, it would be all over the media, and rightly so; because it's a trans IDing man, it's too awkward to even mention.

There is still a sacred caste, it's just a different set of men.

I don't think the parents were cool with it in this instance. He only lasted 4 days.

Maybe the reason he was hired in the first place was because the people who made the decision to hire him, bought the all the lies this ideology has been promoting. 'Trans' are just misunderstood, marginalised, saintly people, who are perfectly normal. 🤷

I bet no one wanted to say it out loud.

Yup. Spineless.

Such is the influence and reach of transactivism, I'm going to hazard a guess that no one dared say but this bloke looks dodgy.

That doesn't excuse raising a question about his social media, though.

But recognising that these men are perverts, or fetishists, is completely taboo.

I bet no one wanted to say it out loud.

Exactly. Even if there was a ‘fellow traveller’ on the panel, why did the other members just roll over and take it??

I know it’s almost a cliche now, that the older members of staff are terrified of the young ones. Could that be the case here, i wonder?

Terrifying that people like this can still successfully gain access to small children.

Republic of Ireland, of course.

I absolutely cannot imagine handing my precious baby over to Ms Starshine every morning, but I guess loads of people are “cool with it.”

It really beggars belief that he was hired in the first place. Who the HELL thought that was a good idea?! His open social media full of threats and fetish crap should have been enough not to hire him. It really worries me that whoever did is also not safe, or at best has absolutely no understanding whatsoever of basic safeguarding. Insane.

FFS there is always the "your interview performance was great but another candidate was even better" line if someone complains about being rejected. Surely your brain would be in furious overdrive thinking up sound excuses from the moment Obvious Creepy Bloke walks into an interview for a job in a nursery.

Yes, a perfect illustration of the 'Emperor's New Clothes' or Orwell's 2 + 2 = 5

All of those MPs in the Q&A with the ECHR the other day simply refused to see or hear what was obvious. I wonder if they will ever look back and recognise how they were so indoctrinated and brainwashed.

In a way the conditioning to not see what you're actually seeing is pretty impressive.

Someone else has probably already pointed out the grooming connotations here...

Painful reading this. It's just appalling.

Dear God, that's difficult to believe. These bloody people.

She was ansked about a book that tells children of 15, which I believe is under age, on how to have anal sex. And she can't condemn it. Refuses to do so.

Just says a parent should have ultimate responsibility.

What fucking for? Finding this book in the local library?? How is that anything to do with the parent?

She just kept saying it. That it's the parents who have oversight. The parents, the parents.

Is she seriously suggesting that parents talk their children through a book on how to prepare their 15 year-old anuses for anal sex?

I don't want to google it, but I'm pretty certain that encouraging children to have underage sex is a crime.

What a bloody awful woman.

edited to add in case people aren't clear, that she is the minister for children, being asked by a journalist about a book being promoted by the national broadcaster.

Ffs how did he get passed the screening ?

It just sounds like really hard work in the Republic. Once they've got these laws in place. Maybe cases like this, and the sunlight they shine, are the best hope.

There is still no resolution according to Google

The current operational status of this dispute includes the following key facts:Policy Unchanged: The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) continues to maintain its baseline policy, which dictates that all staff members have the right to access changing rooms, showers, and toilets aligned with their gender identity.Delayed Actions: Reports indicate that while management previously made pledges to install additional "private" or single-occupancy facilities to resolve the friction, they have delayed doing so, prompting accusations from employee representatives that staff concerns are being ignored.Employee Response: Senior female staff representing affected workers stated they felt "stonewalled" after attempting to escalate the matter to Chief Executive Paddy Hayes, with the issue being referred back to HR without structural changes to facility access.Compromise Reached Elsewhere: The only policy shift management conceded was rolling back a mandate regarding preferred pronouns, but the physical shared-space directives remain fully active.

Rubbish prize.

The new craze appears to be buying second hand clothes 😄