Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Seanad Éireann:

acknowledges:

- the historic 30th anniversary of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993, signed into law on 7th July, 1993, that decriminalised male homosexuality and introduced an equal age of consent;

- the 40th anniversary of both the ‘March from Liberty Hall to Fairview Park’ and the 40th anniversary of the Dublin LGBTQ Pride parade in June 1983;

- the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Liberation Movement, established in Trinity College in October 1973;

further acknowledges:

- the Dáil and Seanad motion of apology in 2018 to those convicted under the laws repealed in the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993;

- the Programme for Government commitment to ‘introduce a scheme for the expunging of criminal records for gay men convicted of historical offences’;

commends:

- the pioneering role of the Gay Liberation Society, established in Belfast in 1972;

- the advocacy of such foundational groups as the Northern Irish Gay Rights Association, the Irish Gay Rights Movement, National Gay Federation, Gay and Lesbian Equality Network, Liberation for Irish Lesbians, Cork Gay Collective, Dublin Lesbian and Gay Men's Collective and Galway Gay Collective, in advancing necessary public discourse on equality and anti-discrimination legislation;

- the bravery and steadfastness of those who pursued criminal and constitutional reform across the island of Ireland;

- the solidarity of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association and its individual member organisations in their decades-long advocacy of legislative reform in Ireland;

recognises:

- there is a global movement towards decriminalising homosexuality as the number of countries that criminalise consensual same-sex acts has decreased from 113 in 1990 to 64 in 2023;

- the bravery and steadfastness of LGBTQI activists and organisations that continue to demand human rights protections and campaign for the decriminalisation of homosexuality and transgender identity, despite threats to their safety and lives;

and calls for:

- the immediate introduction of legislation and a scheme that would disregard the criminal records of gay men convicted of historical offences in Ireland.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit go dtí Seanad Éireann. I am grateful to my Sinn Féin colleagues for their encouragement and support in dedicating our Private Members' time to this important motion. As the Cathaoirleach said, today is International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.

Friends, there is movement and progress right across the world towards decriminalisation of homosexuality and transgender identity. The number of countries that criminalise consensual intimacy between men has gone down from 113 countries in 1990, of which Ireland was one. Today, 64 countries still criminalise consensual same-sex intimacy. We salute the bravery and steadfastness of LGBTQI activists and organisations across the world and send our solidarity to those who pursue human rights protections and who campaign for the decriminalisation of homosexuality and transgender identity despite threats to their lives and safety. We send particular solidarity to those who live in the 11 countries where the penalty for sex between men is death. Those countries are Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, the United Arab Emirates, Brunei, Nigeria, Mauritania and Pakistan. We know that many of the laws criminalising homosexuality around the world have their origin in the archaic laws of the western colonial powers. We know that story.

It gives me great pleasure to mark a year of significant anniversaries as we approach a half century of LGBT civil rights in Ireland. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Fairview Park march, at the time the largest protest in Ireland, against a culture of endemic violence towards women and gay men. The march from Liberty Hall to Fairview Park took place when an already put-upon community was effectively told a gay man's life had no value after the killers of Declan Flynn were left to walk free.

Next month, we will mark the 40th anniversary of the Dublin Pride parade, an event that grew from ten people protesting outside the Department of Justice in 1974 to 200 brave women and men joyously reclaiming the streets in June 1983. That Dublin Pride parade took place a few months after the anger and trauma of the Fairview Park march. Contrast that with today, when tens of thousands of people will participate in Dublin Pride on 24 June, making it the largest parade on the island of Ireland after the St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin. It is my pleasure to welcome members of the Dublin Pride team to Seanad Éireann today. They are very welcome.

As the march progresses through the city this year, we will recall the moment on that day 30 years ago when the Oireachtas introduced the new Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act, finally consigning the Victorian British legislation to the rubbish bin of history. That new law not only introduced a common age of consent but set in train a raft of progressive anti-discrimination and equality legislation, including the far-reaching Equal Status Act 2000 and, more recently, legislation for marriage equality and gender recognition.

In marking the 30th anniversary of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act, I will take a moment to acknowledge the individuals and NGOs that spent decades, many of them lonely and hostile decades, advocating for legislative change, engaging with Irish society on the need for change, and getting us, Ireland, to the point where we can rightfully say that we are beneficiaries of a new, modern and more caring social dispensation. The work of these activists and organisations would have counted for less if they had not been inspired and motivated by the historic and heroic work undertaken by Jeffrey Dudgeon in Belfast and David Norris in Dublin, and their respective teams. It is impossible to overstate the bravery and the personal and financial risks and sacrifices that both of those men made as they sued, respectively, the British and Irish Governments. Senator Norris and Mr. Dudgeon forced reluctant administrations, both North and South, to repeal discriminatory legislation around consensual sexual intimacy.

In this year of anniversaries, I salute the small group of trailblazers who met in Dublin's Trinity College in 1973, establishing the short-lived but enormously influential Sexual Liberation Movement that mobilised for systemic change on a range of issues, including reproductive rights, access to contraceptives, better sexual healthcare and gay law reform, to name but a few pressing intersectional concerns of that group. Senator Norris was, of course, at that first meeting, as was Mr. Edmund Lynch, who is here in the Gallery. I acknowledge Mr. Lynch and all those who met in building No. 5 in the front square of Trinity College in October of that year. Mr. Lynch is very welcome and I thank him for his service.

Sinn Féin today calls on the Government to honour its commitment to disregard the criminal records of gay men who were convicted of historical offences prior to the decriminalisation of homosexuality. In the last term, the then Senator Ged Nash proposed the Convictions for Certain Sexual Offences (Apology and Exoneration) Bill 2016. I commend him and the work of the Labour Party group, including Mr. Karl Hayden and others.

I will take a moment to welcome Mr. Kieran Rose to the Seanad. He was active from 1979 to 1980. We all know Mr. Rose well, from the origins of the Cork Gay Collective to today's activism on the LGBT restorative justice campaign. I also acknowledge Mr. Martin Barnes, the founder of Tell-A-Friend in 1974, 50 years ago next year.

The programme for Government includes a commitment to introduce a scheme for the expunging of criminal records for gay men convicted of historical offences. In 2018, on the 25th anniversary of decriminalisation, the Taoiseach issued an apology to the LGBT community on behalf of the State and subsequently the Department of Justice set up a working group to examine the disregard of convictions for certain qualifying offences related to consensual sexual activity between men. The report of the working group is imminent and it is absolutely necessary that the Government drafts this legislation now.I am calling for a clear timeline to be set out for the introduction of the legislation and a scheme that would disregard the historical convictions. The law is repealed, but the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993 was discriminatory. It was contrary to human dignity and it infringed on people's right to privacy, to say the least.

We welcome the Government's commitment to work on this issue. Men's lives were upended by imprisonment, not unlike our own Oscar Wilde, who left prison in his early 40s a broken man. The move to formally disregard criminal convictions will come too late for many, especially those no longer with us. However, it is important to reclaim the dignity and humanity of those imprisoned men, for themselves as much as for their surviving families. These families were forced to carry the burden of shame, taboo and criminality that attached to homosexuality in all its forms before decriminalisation. Law reform and the proactive approach taken by a small band of legislators in both Houses of the Oireachtas signalled something more than just improving the lot of our LGBT citizens. It sent a signal about the type of caring, inclusive society we want to live in, and in which we want our children to grow up.

While we enact new anti-discrimination and equality legislation, we remember that affording rights to our minorities is not a zero-sum game, but a positive statement about the confident, caring and outward looking society that most of us want Ireland to be.

As we shine a light on 50 years of LGBT activism, we can be proud of the distance we have travelled in building that confident and caring society. We should be mindful that progress is rarely linear, as witnessed by recent transphobic and homophobic assaults, and the murder of two gay men in Sligo last year. It is clear that there are urgent conversations to be had around social inclusion, healthcare and education. I commend the individuals and NGOs in society that continue to progress those conversations.

Time is of the essence now to introduce this legislation and a scheme to disregard these convictions. This is a commitment the Government has made and that it should honour. It is also crucial that a process of memorialisation and commemoration should begin to recognise the wider harms of these laws.