I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
Is iontach gur shroich muid an Stad seo leis an mBille seo. Bhí sé seo foilsithe ach ní raibh muid ag súil go roghnófaí é go tapa is a bhí don díospóireacht ar an Dara Chéim. The Bill states:
...it is declared and recognised that all those, whether applicants or otherwise, who were prosecuted or convicted of offences arising from consensual same-sex sexual activity between persons of full capacity are entitled to and hereby receive an apology and an acknowledgement that maintaining such offences was, on the part of the State, improperly discriminatory and contrary to human dignity and that it infringed human rights including in particular the right to personal privacy and autonomy.
That is the basis of the Bill I move today. Tá áthas orm an Bille um Neamhaird a Thabhairt ar Chionta Stairiúla i dtaobh Gníomhaíocht Ghnéasach Chomhthoiliúil Idir Fir, 2025 a bhogadh ar an Dara Chéim tar éis don Dáil glacadh leis an Chéad Chéim d’aon guth nuair a foilsíodh é i mí Iúil 2025. Gabhaim míle buíochas leis an LGBT restorative justice campaign, go háirithe na daoine a bhunaigh é, lena n-airítear Kieran Rose, Karl Hayden agus Brian Sheehan. Bhí siad ag brú na ceiste seo chun tosaigh. They addressed TDs and Senators in the audiovisual room of Leinster House earlier this week. Throughout the process, they have been in contact with me and other spokespersons on this issue. Some of them are here in the Gallery this evening.
Gabhaim míle buíochas leo siúd who contributed to the drafting of this legislation, which in many ways I plagiarised from them: Céile Varley, Cillian Bracken and the law firms, Goodbody and Clifford Chance. Gabhaim buíochas leis na Teachtaí eile a shínigh an Bille seo – Teachtaí Ged Nash, Pádraig Rice, Paul Murphy, Roderic O’Gorman agus iarTheachta Dála agus Uachtarán na hÉireann reatha, Catherine Connolly. Is é seo an Bille deireanach a thionscain sí agus tréaslaím léi as an éacht atá bainte amach aici ó shín. Is Bille é seo a chuirfidh deireadh leis an éagóir a rinneadh ar fhir leis na glúnta de réir géarleanúna coilíní.
The fact that this Bill has been co-sponsored by TDs from Sinn Féin, the Labour Party, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit, the Green Party and the Independent Catherine Connolly before her election as President indicates the groundswell of support and consensus across this House on this issue. Not alone was the Opposition united on the need for a disregard process, but the Minister, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, indicated at the time that he was not opposed to this. He has also indicated that he will not oppose the legislation on Second Stage and, in fact, intends to bring his own proposals forward in the very near future. I know he has promised that before, but he promised me that it would be within weeks this time. I hope we can then get the Government's approach to the need for this legislation before us and then we can deal with the amendments shortly. This will allow us to put to an end once and for all the wrong committed for many years. Every day wasted is a day where we are failing to account for the nation's dark history when it comes to the persecution of gay men.
That persecution can be traced way back to Act for the Punishment of the Vice of Buggery (Ireland) 1634, which was imposed by a British colonial regime. That law remained on the books in this State until 1993 along with the other draconian laws from the Victorian era that criminalised men who engaged in consensual sexual activity with other men. The first law stated it was for "the detestable and abominable Vice of Buggery committed with Mankind or Beast". Consensual same-sex activity was lumped in with bestiality. It also stated that offenders shall suffer such pains of death and losses as felons be accustomed to.
When the Free State was founded, this homophobic bigotry was enshrined in law again in the running of our Defence Forces where consensual activity was deemed a military offence subject to court martial. That was reinforced as late as in the Defence Act 1954.
When the Government of the day was finally dragged kicking and screaming into decriminalising consensual sex between men in 1993 following the famous case taken by our good friend in these Houses, David Norris, who took the case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, there was little acknowledgement then or since of the lives that were utterly destroyed by the horrific penal system that existed for generations or of the lived reality of being gay in this State and the climate of fear in which gay men lived or left Ireland to escape. There was no space for people who did not conform.
This was also the time of the Magdalen laundries, the industrial schools, forced adoption and record incarceration in psychiatric hospitals. For gay men, the State was against them, the church was against them and in many cases their communities were against them. At the very least, they feared that their own families were against them. The criminality associated with gay sex meant that there was little support during the AIDS crisis and sometimes homophobic violence was normalised in our society, which meant that they lived in fear of their life with nowhere to turn.
Decriminalisation came ten years after the brutal murder of Declan Flynn in Fairview Park, which sparked the first Pride march in Dublin in 1983. In the ten years leading up to the decriminalisation, the State commenced criminal proceedings in 309 cases, resulting in 94 convictions. Dozens more cases of buggery were known to the Garda in 1993 and more men could well have been prosecuted. We must remember that the mere threat of prosecution was used to blackmail gay men. They would be named and shamed in the newspapers. They might lose their jobs or their families. In some cases, they faced judges whose unbridled homophobia was plain for all to see as they spoke openly about how they would have given a higher sentence if they could.
Some local gardaí also demonstrated particular vindictiveness. Of the 68 criminal proceedings commenced in 1969, 20 were charged in Tullow, in County Carlow, alone, including teenagers aged 15, 16 and 17.
So much for protecting children, when children were in fact being criminalised by the State. Imagine the fear that was felt by those largely working class men and juveniles whose sexual activity became the talk of the town. It was talked of as a crime, and they were expected to pay extortionate bail bonds.
I have done a bit of research since I embarked on this legislation and the passage of First Stage. It is only a cursory snapshot through the papers that are online. These are the files here in my hand, and each one of them is just one story out of one paper, a snapshot in time, but they reflect the attitudes of the day. The attitudes from the first one I have, from 1929, remain the same right up to the last one I have found at this stage. My work is not complete. I am missing two decades of research. This is only from a search for "gross indecency", which was what most men were charged with. I can and will continue, but I hope in all this that we look at this and that when the Minister produces legislation, we get into looking at funding a piece of research to see the level of persecution in the State and the effects it had on people.
In the Irish Independent, on 26 October 1929, it says the following. It is short enough because these were very short notices.
Exemplary Sentence.—Judge Davitt sentenced Victor Furley, who pleaded guilty to a large number of counts of gross indecency, to 15 years' penal servitude, and in commending Det. Officers Madden and Cryan, who had assisted in bringing the accused to justice, said it was revolting that police officers and Irishmen should have to be employed in detecting such crimes.
That is from 1929, and it does not stop there. As I said, this is a cursory glance through snippets in time. I go up to one that I found quite horrendous in The Nationalist & Leinster Times on 25 March 1950. It records the following case. It is quite a substantial report, which usually is not the case. They were usually one or two lines, but this one went into quite some detail.
His Lordship [that is, the judge] said to the accused that it was sad to see a man of his stamp in court in a case of this kind. As Counsel said, his case was one more for scientific medical treatment than one for ordinary imprisonment.
"Dempsey, are you determined to make a manly effort to cure yourself of this trouble?" his lordship asked.
Prisoner [who was obviously scared to death of what was in front of him]—I am.
That is the type of fear there was. I will not read out any more but I have done a job of work and, as I have mentioned, there was a piece of work done in relation to Tullow. It just shows that, in certain areas, certain gardaí or certain judges had a specific bent towards convicting and persecuting those who they felt were criminal. That was their approach.
This Bill does not accomplish everything that was set out in the report, which was to address our failings. The justice Minister at the time, Charlie Flanagan, and the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, issued apologies on behalf of the State in June 2018 to those affected, but the criminal records of the convictions still remain. A first effort and progress to expunge those convictions using confidential Garda email addresses failed utterly as nobody came forward. It is unsurprising that victims of injustice would feel that they would have to go back to the perpetrators to seek their help.
Between 2021 and 2023, the working group was set up to examine the disregard for convictions. It produced a comprehensive report outlining the harsh realities of this gross human rights abuse. It proposed 95 recommendations for a disregard scheme. As I said, this Bill does not address all of those. It cannot. There are restrictions on us as Opposition TDs. We cannot put a charge on the Exchequer. Such practical things like resourcing and counselling supports cost money. We will hopefully get into some of that when we deal with the Minister's amendments. We address the need for research and redress to find out what the consequences are. Ours is not the only country in the world that has gone down the road of trying to address this hateful persecution. This Bill establishes a process for applying to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission for a disregard of one's conviction as well as an appeals process and a review of the process within three years, along with annual reporting of the performances of that function. A disregard will provide clarity that there are no grounds for dismissing or prejudicing a person from office, profession, occupation, employment or any other right or privilege which citizens are entitled to on the basis of such conviction.
Acceptance, recognition, justice: no less is deserved by the generation of men who did nothing but take part in the love that dare not speak its name. In this, the land of Oscar Wilde, it is time that love spoke freely and those men were heard.
