Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish all colleagues happy Pride in advance of the big Dublin Pride parade on Saturday. June marks Pride month. It is 30 years since decriminalisation of homosexuality, but 30 years on, men who were prosecuted before that are still waiting for an official disregard of the abhorrent convictions. Seven years ago, my Labour Party colleague, Deputy Nash, introduced a Bill in the Seanad to put a disregard scheme in place. Since then, Deputy Nash and all of us in the Labour Party have worked alongside LGBTQ activists such as Kieran Rose and Karl Hayden on the establishment of the working group and the disregard scheme. We are very pleased with the announcement by the Government this week on the disregard scheme and really welcome that but we want confirmation that the report will be published without delay and that the necessary legislation for the disregard scheme will be enacted before the end of the year. People who faced prosecution and conviction for consensual sexual activity that has since been decriminalised have been waiting far too long. We also want to see the release of the records around the change in the law. I have raised this with the Taoiseach before. It would be timely to make an announcement on that.

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