Pádraig Rice

Overall sentiment: 0.15
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I will speak for two minutes. I welcome the disregard amendments. I was delighted, on behalf of the Social Democrats, to sign the cross-party Opposition Bill, with Deputy Ó Snodaigh and others, to advance this issue. It is also an issue I campaigned on before my election to the Dáil. I welcome these amendments and thank the Minister for bringing them forward. It should not have taken the State 33 years to get to this point; it should have happened much sooner. However, we welcome that it has happened. As I said previously, lives have been destroyed by these arrests and convictions. So many men across generations have been impacted. I have no doubt that those who lived through the 1980s and the HIV-AIDS crisis were impacted. More should have been done for those people. I will take a minute to highlight some of the concerns raised by the LGBT+ Restorative Justice Campaign, in particular the omissions under military law. The 2022 working group report recommended including relevant offences under military law. That group was set up by the then Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee. Those issues should have been addressed. Similarly, convictions prior to the establishment of the State should have been included. Provisions related to how relatives and friends can apply are too limited. Many of us in the LGBT community call our friends our chosen family. They should be able to apply. I welcome the awareness campaign. That is a crucially important part of the measure. It needs to go right around the world. This issue is of a global nature because people left. There is a real opportunity to remove the legal scars caused by criminalisation, but this is just one step. This is just one thing. For true restorative justice, we need so much more, including transgender healthcare, closing gaps in family law, banning conversion practices and updating equality laws. Those of us campaigning and marching in Dublin Pride in a couple of weeks' time will be sending the message that we need much more to be done on this.

Sentiment score: 0.15