Campaigners have welcomed plans by the Government to introduce legislation allowing historic convictions for same-sex activity to be formally disregarded, with strong calls for the process to include posthumous cases and applications from relatives.

The proposed measures would address convictions imposed when homosexuality was still illegal in Ireland, before its decriminalisation in 1993. According to the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), at least 941 men were convicted of so-called “homosexual acts” under the law, though the true figure may exceed 2,000.

Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan has confirmed that he intends to table an amendment to the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, setting out the process for disregarding these convictions. Speaking in the Dáil, the minister said he hoped to bring forward the amendment sometime in March, with a view to it progressing quickly through the Oireachtas.

Kieran Rose of the LGBT Restorative Justice Campaign, who served on the working group that helped shape the legislation, described the approach as “open, generous and inclusive”. Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said campaigners had strongly recommended that the legislation allow convictions to be cleared after a person’s death.

“One of the things that we recommended and we hope will go through is that it can be posthumous,” he said. “There could be quite a large number. We also want relatives of somebody who was convicted to be able to apply.”

Mr Rose argued that this was essential to ensuring justice was both done and seen to be done. He said it would be wrong for the Department of Justice, which oversaw, defended and enforced the criminalisation of homosexuality, including before the European Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Court, to act as the sole judge of its own past human rights violations.

He added that the minister had committed to bringing the legislation forward by amendment and expressed hope that it could be enacted by June, coinciding with the anniversary of gay law reform in 1993.

Adam Long, Board Director of the NXF, also welcomed the announcement, describing the original laws as “a gross violation of fundamental human rights”. He said they subjected gay and bisexual men to state-sanctioned homophobia for expressing their identity and noted that the Irish State continued to enforce colonial-era legislation long after independence.

Campaigners say the legislation represents a significant step towards restorative justice for those affected and their families, whilst celebrating the news of a potential pardon, their is a stress for the pardons to same-sex activity convictions to include posthumous cases