1st July 2025
he LGBT Restorative Justice Campaign expressed their disappointment that the Government’s Autumn Legislative Programme does not include the legislation to provide for Disregards for the convictions of gay men prosecuted under anti-gay legislation.
“It is disappointing the Government will not be bringing forward legislation this term to provide for Disregards for those convicted under the State’s anti-gay laws which were finally repealed thirty years ago, in 1993” said Kieran Rose of the LGBT Restorative Justice Campaign.
“Eight years on since the start of the process of apology and exoneration, those living for decades under the cloud of criminal convictions are kept waiting for justice. The Government has already acknowledged that those convictions were wrong, that significant harms were done to individuals arrested, charged, prosecuted and convicted under the legislation and to the wider LGBTQ+ community, and for which a Government apology was made in 2018” said Karl Hayden from the LGBT Restorative Justice Campaign.
The Government’s Working Group issued a series of recommendations for the legislation in its interim report published a year ago and in its final report published last June which called for comprehensive provisions in the legislation to provide for disregards of previous convictions of legislation that targeted LGBT people.
“We now call on the Government to publish a timetable for publishing the legislation and bringing it to the Oireachtas, honouring the commitment given in the Programme for Government” continued Hayden.
“We welcome the commitment in the Legislative Programme to bring forward legislation this term to prohibit ‘conversion therapy’, and encourage the Government to take a wider restorative justice approach to the acknowledged harms done by criminalisation including by passing the Hate Crimes legislation and properly resourcing LGBTQ+ community groups and services” concluded Rose.
ENDS.
LGBT Disregard 