Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all our guests who have taken the time to be here today. I commend in particular my colleague and comrade, Senator Warfield, on bringing this very important motion to the Seanad. As has been pointed out, next month marks the 30th anniversary of the introduction of the 1993 Act which decriminalised homosexuality. It is worth reflecting that at least 940 men were convicted of homosexual acts in Ireland under the awful legislation in place before that. It is high time those criminal records were disregarded alongside that legislation. It is a pity it has taken 30 years to get to this point but we very much welcome the work the Minister, Deputy McEntee, has done to bring about public consultation and promises of legislation to expunge or disregard those offences. I very much look forward to the Minister of State's response because I am sure he will give us a clear timeline for when this legislation will be brought forward and passed.

As someone who grew up in Ireland in the 1980s, I believe it is worth taking a minute to think about the impact the horrendous British legislation had on so many people for so many decades in respect of their employment and their ability to live a life here in Ireland. I took the time to read some excerpts from a book by Diarmaid Ferriter, Occasions of Sin. It details some of the horrific circumstances in which gay men found themselves. In one case in Kildare in 1927, a man was lured by a detective, compromised by that detective and then convicted. Professor Ferriter details a famous case in Tullow in which a garda found two young men in a compromising situation and then managed to get a whole host of names of other people. As a result, 20 men were convicted in one case in the small town of Tullow, County Carlow. The impact of that was that lives were ruined. Some of these men were married.

I mention the 1980s because my honest recollection, from going to school in a vocational school on the Meath side of the Meath-Westmeath-Cavan border, was that homosexuality was a complete no-go at that time. It was completely outside the Pale. I recall a friend of mine in school. I never knew he was gay. He left the country, as so many did during the 1980s, because he obviously did not feel he had any space to come out and be who he was. He headed off and started a new life elsewhere. I am sure that was the case for many thousands of people.

It is great to reflect on the progress we have made, and we really have made great progress in terms of marriage equality and gender recognition. As previous speakers have done, however, I will reflect on what happens elsewhere. There has been a very welcome trend towards decriminalisation of homosexuality, with almost 50 countries decriminalising since the beginning of the 1990s. According to my notes, there are still 67 countries which currently expressly criminalise same-sex sexual activity. LGBTIQ people still face discrimination, harassment, persecution, incarceration or even murder or the death penalty in many parts of the world. I will break that down. Thirty-two countries in Africa criminalise LGBT people in some form. In the Americas six countries, all Caribbean, criminalise sexual activity between people of the same sex. In Asia 23 countries, the majority of which are in the Middle East, criminalise LGBT people. In the Pacific seven countries criminalise consensual same-sex sexual activities. The punishments in these countries vary, but it is frightening that there are still 11 countries where the death penalty can be someone's punishment for being gay.

As I have mentioned previously in this Chamber, we do trade missions to some of these countries, including Saudi Arabia. We saw the horrific sportswashing in Qatar during the World Cup. I do not know how we do those trade missions when, unfortunately, our Governments do not mention during these trade missions the horrific laws on the death penalty for being gay, for example, in Saudi Arabia. We need to be aware of that.

During my time in the Council of Europe, I have seen representatives from Poland and Hungary very openly taking a stance that is very discriminatory. We know that only a couple of years ago there were LGBT-free zones in Poland. That is not in the 1980s or the 1890s; that was in 2020. We know that a raft of anti-LGBT legislation has been passed in Hungary. I can tell the House about some of the shrill voices I hear on the Council of Europe from these far-right parties, the likes of Vox in Spain and the Swedish Liberals. These parties will bring back hatred and discrimination and worse if they get their way. That is what we see at the moment.

One of the things that worries me - and I do not want to finish on a depressing note - is that it appears that some parties of the centre-right are willing to do deals with these parties. There is a real prospect that the People's Party in Spain will join a coalition with Vox at the end of this year if they get the votes. To me, that is beyond the Pale because these parties represent hatred and the sort of prejudice we have spent the past 30 years moving away from. It is important we make that clear call today that all of us - and it is very clear to me that everyone in this Chamber shares that common ground of believing in progress, individual rights and freedoms - make sure that none of our sister parties anywhere across Europe have anything to do with a return of the far right.