Mr. Colm O'Gorman:

On the question of aid and the advocacy which Members of the Oireachtas and other parliamentarians in Europe may be able offer, it is crucial to acknowledge that statements made in the global north can have a very direct impact on the safety and well-being of the LGBTI community and activists in Uganda in particular. Suggestions that aid might be cut - I acknowledge no member here has suggested that - in opposition to this Bill will only increase the vulnerability of that community. The view is that everything that happens in Uganda at the moment, every single political development, is the fault of the gays; it is that extreme.

We had a very positive meeting this morning with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Irish Aid to discuss Ireland's aid programme. Kasha Nabagesera made it clear at the meeting that neither she nor the LGBTI activists in Uganda were asking for aid to be cut. As members of general Ugandan society, they are also dependent on some of the services and initiatives provided through that aid programme. However, they would support a targeting of some aid to support civil society in Uganda.

Approximately 39 organisations joined forces with Kasha and her colleagues in opposition to the Bill. Those 39 organisations - many of which are human rights organisations - have now been blacklisted by the government and signalled for closure. There is a very heavy suppression of any organisation that speaks out in favour of LGBTI rights generally.

I refer to two issues with regard to the legislation. Homosexuality is already a criminal offence in Uganda. It is noteworthy for us in Ireland and particularly for those such as Senator Norris who managed to secure the repeal of that legislation that Uganda operates under the same post-colonial laws as did Ireland until 1993. It is exactly the same legislation. What is different about the current legislation is not just the threat of the death penalty but also the focus on suppressing freedom of expression.

The promotion of homosexuality is forbidden. Any reference to homosexuality in the public sphere must be negative; it must be an attack. The rhetoric is increasingly violent. Anyone who seeks to defend or push back on that rhetoric is accused of promoting homosexuality. The narrative put out by the evangelical churches who are behind the legislation, also by the media and supporters of the Bill and many politicians, is that LGBTI activists are actively recruiting children to homosexuality; that this is the focus of their efforts; that they are seeking, for instance, to destroy the traditional African family. That community is being particularly scapegoated for the most extreme and bizarre things in Uganda - a situation that is somewhat familiar to us in this country. It is very important that the rhetoric is calm and reasoned.

This is the reason we suggest that the committee might wish to consider the three recommendations from Uganda's recent UN universal periodic review. Uganda accepted three recommendations which all refer directly to the need to investigate and prosecute those guilty of violent attacks on members of the LGBTI community. One of the recommendations also referenced stopping discrimination of LGBTI people in Uganda. If Ireland worked to support the Ugandan state by means of its diplomatic influence in order to help it to deliver on the accepted recommendations of the UN profiles, this would be a way to begin that dialogue. I ask Ireland to consider discussions with the Ugandan Government in an effort to create an environment in which an appropriate public debate or discourse on these issues would be more possible. That is a longer-term piece of work but is one that needs to begin.