Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have moved within a generation from a time when gay men and women were an alien and shunned phenomenon to one where sexuality in all its expressions can be fully celebrated. That change has been dramatic but politicians and political parties can claim only part of the credit. Civil society and civil organisations have been the pathfinders on this reform and none more so than Senator David Norris who is in the Chamber this evening. The Labour Party can claim to have been at the forefront of all of the major campaigns for gay rights, but the eventual delivery at political level was on a unified, cross-party basis.

The words "sexual orientation" first appeared on the Statute Book in 1989 in the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act. The then Minister for Justice, Ray Burke, of all people, agreed to a Labour Party amendment, supported by the Worker's Party at the time, to the Government Bill to broaden the definition from racial hatred to include sexual orientation, an amendment that his predecessor, Gerry Collins, stoutly refused to make. We are celebrating today because the Fianna Fáil-Labour Party coalition Government, of which I was very honoured to be a member as Minister for Health, delivered in 1993 on a Labour Party manifesto promise to abolish all criminal offences relating to consensual sex among same-sex couples. It is hard to imagine now how delicately the subject was treated, but I remember those times. It is amazing to consider that the then Minister for Justice, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn brought two options to Government and left it up to her colleagues to choose which of them to adopt, with no statement of ministerial or departmental choice. The second option, almost forgotten now, was that our legislation should legalise same-sex acts but only at 21 or 18, perhaps, rather than the age of heterosexual consent at the time. It required, if I recall correctly, only a very short discussion at Cabinet to agree a principle of a common age of consent. Ultimately, that legislation went through the Dáil with just one voice dissenting, although the Fine Gael front bench under John Bruton was deeply divided on the age of consent issue and remained so afterwards. One or two Deputies here will remember that another battle was fought subsequently when the aforementioned party leader wanted to raise the age of consent generally.

To our credit, that story was very different from the far more protracted and divisive debate that took place in Britain which was not finally resolved until 2001. Of course, we know that male homosexual acts were decriminalised in England and Wales in 1967. What is not so well-known is that in the year following the liberalisation of the law, the police brought more prosecutions under the new Act than had been brought under the previous one. In the UK, the age of consent was set at 21 for homosexual acts, in contrast to 16 for heterosexual acts. In 1994, the year after we changed the law here and equalised the age of consent, Ms Edwina Currie proposed an amendment to British legislation to introduce a common age of consent which was soundly defeated in the House of Commons. The furthest they would go in Westminster was to lower the age of consent from 21 to 18 for homosexual acts. As others have mentioned, a 1997 judgment of the European Court of Human Rights held that a different age of consent was a breach of European law. Nonetheless, two efforts to introduce a common age of consent were vetoed in the House of Lords and a final effort was only passed using override powers under the Parliament Act. Reform finally came to Britain in 2001, so we were ahead of our nearest neighbour on this matter.

Meanwhile, back home, my party's Equal Status Bill had been voted down by the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government in 1992 when it was an Opposition Bill. It was a Labour Party election manifesto commitment that became official Government policy when the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government was formed. I had the honour in 2006 of introducing my party's Civil Unions Bill which I described at the time as providing a basic human right. I recognise that it was only the first step to what we later achieved, namely, full marriage equality through a constitutional amendment rather than through legislative spearheading. That popular endorsement of the concept of full civic equality was the right approach. The sense of urgency demands consistent, insistent pressure, despite every parliamentary setback, and persistence eventually pays off. I reintroduced the Civil Unions Bill when a new Government was formed which was again voted down. Eventually, however, the Civil Partnership Bill became law in 2010 which paved the way for the marriage equality referendum in 2015.

A lot remains to be done. When we are confronted with the shocking figures for young male suicide, I cannot help wondering how many of those lives have been destroyed by overwhelming insecurity and the terror of non-acceptance by family and community of a secret identity and sexual orientation. It is, I believe, a greater proportion than the number of gay men and women among the population as a whole. The ultimate goal must be complete acceptance, inclusion and normality and nothing less - the right to be treated as nothing out of the ordinary.

I want to finish my contribution by quoting from a message my colleagues, Senator Nash and Senator Bacik, received today from Mr. Seamus Dooley of the National Union of Journalists, which reads as follows:

Just a short note of personal thanks to you both for your consistent and unswerving support on the issue of LGBT rights over many years. There is every danger you may be drowned out by voices new to the topic but those of us who have been campaigning for decades are especially grateful to Labour Oireachtas members, past and present. It would be good to mention Declan Flynn today. His killing was a significant turning point and brought the LGBT community out onto the streets. In this regard, there are powerful lines from Pearse Hutchinson's poem, Let's Hope: One morning last year

From the top deck of a bus

I saw the living sunlight flooding

trees and grass in Fairview Park

with light, life, splendour-

as if no death,

as if no hate,

as if no ignorance ever.Today is too late for Declan but it is never too late to remember.

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