Laoise de Brún | Barrister | Seanad Candidate

BANNING THE BURQA: 10 years ago I would have been horrified. Five years ago I would have been disappointed and seen it as punching down. Now I unequivocally support the banning of the niqab and burqa in public in the West and I would go further: I would ban the hijab on little girls. I do NOT accept the logic that covering is necessary because of men’s unbridled sexual urges toward adult women BUT as a tolerant liberal I will live alongside this when it comes to adult human females. I do not accept that girls under the age of consent should, in any way, have to take responsibility for the sexual aggression of men. Never. In this regard I do feel the rights of women and girls are universal insofar as I will not apply cultural relativism to this issue. Never. This is where, I am afraid, your cultural or religious values are trumped by the host country’s normative views towards women’s rights though you may argue you choose to cover, a child cannot choose and cannot consent and therefore I will always advocate for them unequivocally.

@CheallaighNiamh There is a vindictive glee at the heart of power in this country that never fails to shock me to my core

This makes no sense. Fine them or take the house off them. But knocking down a perfectly good home at the height of a housing crisis, batshit crazy.

@UnityakaAontu Why could they not pay a fine and stay in the house?

Terrible to demolish a usable home. Owners accept their planning breach, yet €130k+ will be spent knocking it while families struggle to find housing. Hard to justify. A rigid system choosing enforcement over common sense.

It went so so well. Absolutely buzzing. 💪🏻💪🏻😅😅🥂🥂🥂 I brought up all the issues below as well as the survivors of the homes and then having heard all the submissions, I noted in summary the paradoxical nature of motherhood: it is what immediately makes women more vulnerable to violence and discrimination yet imbues them with a fearless, protective strength unparalleled. It is that instinct after all that propelled mothers to raise the alarm at the IPAS interfaces. I recounted the haunting words through her tears, of that Mother protesting in Newtownmountkennedy; “My grandmother walked down that lane, I walked down that lane, I cannot now let my own daughter walk down that lane because it is too dangerous.”

@micheal_olainn @eosfuturedesign I am an expert by virtue of being an IBCLC and a barrister practising in the family courts and a women’s and mother’s rights grassroots campaigner

@laoisedebrun @eosfuturedesign Expert ideologues, not true experts.

I am addressing the UN later today between 2pm and 5pm CET to be precise. The Countess submitted to the UN Report on Violence Against the Mother and were selected to give expert testimony from Ireland. I will be bringing up trans ideology, immigration, surrogacy, the attempted removal of A.41.2, our abysmal, stagnant breastfeeding rates, the lack of breastfeeding or postpartum supports, obstetric violence, the lack of a trauma-informed approach in the family courts or understanding of coercive control, tax individualisation, our non-replacement birth rate, the denigration of mothering and motherhood at a social, economical, cultural and political level. Have I missed anything off? PS This is the second time the UN has asked @TheCountessIE to provide expert testimony yet we have repeatedly been turned down by our own government to provide similar as a stakeholder group in Ireland. It’s almost as if all those consultations with stakeholders are a forgone conclusion / the echo chamber/ the manufacture of consent? We are asking to be admitted by the Irish government as an official stakeholder in the interest of balance and in furtherance of representative not sham democracy. @Education_Ire @HSELive @DeptHealthIRL @DeptJusticeIRL @DeptCultureIRL

@NorthFingal4yes Not really. Went really well in fact.

@laoisedebrun Oh no. What a waste of your conservative racist transphobic time. lgbtqnation.com/2026/02/europe… euractiv.com/news/gender-ch…

@LouiseSC297358 I could agree more. The more they denigrate the mothers the more they fillet the heart out of society

@laoisedebrun Very best wishes, Laoise. Thank you for speaking up about all these crucial issues which affect mothers in Ireland. I hope the government will listen and include you in future discussions. Motherhood is utterly devalued here. This is detrimental to children and society.

@IsraelOfficialX Reem Alaseem is the special rapporteur on violence against women and girls and she is superb

@laoisedebrun I am sure the jew-owned slaves at the UN really took it to heart.

@MaudGoneFishing Another expert delegate read out her speech !!!!!

@laoisedebrun Well done. The second Irish woman to speak about motherhood on an international stage this week. That paradox is what Jessie Buckley put so well as "the beautiful chaos of a mother's heart."

@RossLahive1 Thanks a million Ross

@laoisedebrun Fantastic Laoise, delighted for you

@StephenLonergan Thanks Steve, that means a lot !! X

@laoisedebrun Well done Laoise x

@laoisedebrun Thank you Laoise you speak for the majority of us here in Ireland

@Irenemacirish @SuzieD755164 Done ✔️

@laoisedebrun @SuzieD755164 The fact that illegal immigration’s is causing huge problems for women and children’s safety.

@Clare2780788901 @TheCountessIE The truth ? 🧐

@laoisedebrun Best of luck, Laoise, thanks for highlighting all these important issues, it is telling that the Irish Govt won't include the @TheCountessIE as a stakeholder. What are they trying to avoid hearing!

My understanding is that there are approx 23,000 cases waiting to appeal in a massive backlog. I just cannot compute. Strongly agree with the border fantasy. They are all just getting a bus down from Belfast into Dublin City Centre to rock up in Mount Street and claim international protection.

Betrayal in Broad Daylight as Sneaky Pilot Pact Hands Our Borders to Brussels on a Silver Platter While Irish taxpayers foot the bill for endless hotel rooms and welfare handouts, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan is quietly running a pilot scheme that hands our asylum system over to the EU’s disastrous Migration and Asylum Pact. Operating since last year out of the Citywest reception centre, this “phased approach” is already fast-tracking cases from “safe countries” and nations with acceptance rates below 20%, including Nigeria, in shiny new 12-week timelines. O’Callaghan boasted to the Seanad this week that it’s “seeking to implement what the pact will look like” ahead of the June 12th full rollout. Translation: we’re road-testing Brussels’ latest gift to open-border chaos before the ink is even dry on the legislation. This is the same EU Migration Pact rammed through both Houses of the Oireachtas without proper debate, zero scrutiny, and, most outrageously, zero public consultation. Public polls have screamed for years that Ireland has had enough of mass migration levels. Yet the political class simply ignored the people, as usual. Remember Dublin III? That EU return scheme was supposed to send asylum seekers back to their first point of entry but was never enforced, leaving countries like Greece and Italy overwhelmed while Ireland swallowed the consequences. Now we’re doubling down with an even more centralised pact that binds us tighter to Brussels’ failed migration machine. The ultimate betrayal is the government’s repeated breach of the 2004 referendum, where the Irish people overwhelmingly ended automatic citizenship for children of non-nationals. Yet backdoor policies and lax enforcement continue to undermine that democratic decision. Senator Michael McDowell rightly highlighted the farce: thanks to the Common Travel Area, most asylum seekers arrive via Britain, rendering the pact’s “border procedure” meaningless once they claim asylum in Dublin city centre. O’Callaghan’s talk of “accelerated examination” and screening centres fails to address this core flaw. The minister claims the pilot is hitting targets and the full system will work from June 12th. But this is the same government that couldn’t enforce Dublin III or honour the 2004 referendum. Six months to decide claims in a country already strained by record applications, housing shortages, and public service pressures is fantasy, not reform. The EU Migration Pact isn’t a solution; it’s a suicide pact for national control. It strips member states of the right to protect their own borders while pretending to offer “solidarity.” Ireland gets the pilot project today, the full chaotic reality tomorrow , all while the Irish people, who never asked for any of this, are shut out of the conversation entirely. Enough. The government’s rush to implement this pact behind closed doors is an insult to democracy, a betrayal of the 2004 referendum, and proof that Dublin III’s failures or their failure to enact it taught them nothing. If they truly believed in this system, they’d have put it to the people instead of sneaking it in via pilot schemes and rubber-stamp legislation. The public has made its view crystal clear in every poll: we want control of our borders returned to Ireland, not handed to Brussels on a silver platter. Anything less is a breach of the sovereign right of the Irish people and contempt for the nation that pays the bills.

@woofwooflad89 @SJSK71216091 Actually yes and assisted dying because the majority are women

@SJSK71216091 @laoisedebrun I almost vomited when I read that this morning

@Ireland2020 @nevin_noelle On the list x

@laoisedebrun @nevin_noelle This 😢

@SamaHoole @daleofravens Also no crap or snacking or processed plastic food and a lot of pleasure in the simple things in life. Meals are sacred and so is family time. People there stroll after dinner. Health is built into how the live.

What Americans think the Mediterranean Diet is: - Whole grains - Olive oil - Colourful vegetables - The occasional sad sardine - Moral virtue on a plate What Mediterranean people actually eat: - Lamb, constantly, at every celebration and several non-occasions - Pork in about fifteen formats - Salami, prosciutto, pancetta, 'nduja, and several more that haven't reached Sainsbury's - Fish multiple times a week - Eggs every morning without discussion - Cheese in quantities that would concern a British GP - Full-fat yoghurt, not the pastel-pot kind - Butter, cream, and animal fat as standard cooking mediums The French consume an extraordinary amount of cheese per person annually. They are not suffering. The Mediterranean Diet sold in books is the photogenic fifteen percent of what they actually eat. The olive oil is real. Everything else got quietly edited out.

@waffler_wafflor @griptmedia @john_mcguirk It was an opinion only. She has not published data. We have.

@griptmedia @john_mcguirk As the Rape Crisis Centre stated clearly, there is no evidence support these activists claims. This is a foreign funded ngo activist organisation set up by people pushing ideology the UK. Strange that "Catholic" "Nationalists" such as this blog site are supporters. Or is it..?

JOHN MCGUIRK: "Being “fringe” in Ireland simply means that you are not part of the safe consensus that dominates our media and politics, where people who are very protective of their careers spend lifetimes saying nothing challenging or of interest" gript.ie/womens-coaliti…