On July 11, 2024, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) published its key recommendations for the next government. While the organisation does push for several improvements in LGBTQ+ rights, legislation to disregard historic convictions of gay and bisexual men in Ireland was not included.

Same-sex sexual activity between men had been criminalised since the State was founded in 1937, adopted from the 1861 Offenses Against the Person Act from English Common Law. It wasn’t until 1993 that it was decriminalised, following the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform led by activists including David Norris.

Over the nearly 60 years that the statutes were in effect, hundreds of men were charged with ‘gross indecency’, and in 2018, the Irish government first announced its plans to quash these former criminal offences. In June 2023, it was confirmed that the disregard legislation would be introduced, but there have been minimal updates since then.

Now, as the Dáil is in its final months before an anticipated general election, the IHREC shared what it believes should be policy priorities for the next government. The document recommends a review of the Equality Acts, improvements in trans healthcare and the introduction of hate speech and hate crime laws among other things, but there is no mention of the disregard legislation, which has left campaigners disappointed.

“The criminalisation of homosexuality was one of the worst human rights violations by the Irish State resulting in the arrests, prosecutions, convictions and sometimes imprisonment of men and juveniles for consenting sexual relationships, lives were destroyed,” LGBTQ+ activist and former IHREC Commissioner Kieran Rose said.

“Disregard legislation to exonerate the victims of criminalisation was recommended in the final report of the Working Group on Disregard Legislation published by the Department of Justice in June 2023. It is an insult to the victims of criminalisation for IHREC to exclude Disregard legislation from their Key Recommendations for the next government,” he added.

Responding to the criticism, the Commission told GCN that the “high-level document” was developed “to aid and encourage political parties in ensuring that human rights and equality remains at the forefront of their policy development”.

It continued: “So that it is workable and user friendly, it is necessarily restrictive in approach.

“The selection of recommendations chosen for our guide does not infer a hierarchy of recommendations. Instead, the selection reflects our belief that the particular recommendations chosen are best progressed in this way.

“As you will be aware, in June 2023, the Working Group examining the Disregard of Convictions for Certain Qualifying Offences Related to Consensual Sexual Activity between Men, published their report making 95 recommendations in total. Colm O’Dwyer SC, a former IHREC Commission Member, represented the Commission at this working group.

“We welcomed the publication of this report and remain committed to promoting the introduction of a statutory scheme, to enable the disregarding of relevant criminal records that arose from when sex between men was still a crime in Ireland. We will continue to monitor the Government’s commitment to legislate in this area,” the statement concluded.