I will keep it brief because I do not want to reiterate the points that have already been made. The Minister might be able to answer me: is he still open to making amendments at the Seanad stage in regard to improving some aspects of the Bill?

Sentiment score: 0.18

He is. I thank the Minister.

Sentiment score: 0.18

I did not intend to come back in but the Minister said something I profoundly disagree with. On the idea of having the cut-off at 1922 because the State should not be responsible for what happened when it was a colony, the Minister began his contributions earlier on by talking about how he inherited this system from the UK. It is not like we radically transformed the system right afterwards. What we did was maintain it, enforce it and became part of it. The idea might be that we must have a cut-off time because we cannot be responsible for what happened when we were a colony, but we did not deviate from it one iota when we were not. In regard to how we treated people, the Minister said that we inherited the system-----

Sentiment score: -0.19

-----but we also maintained the system. A person who was imprisoned in 1921 for what were homosexual offences at the time would still have been in prison in 1922 or potentially in 1923. We have become custodians of our own history. We cannot just draw a line. If the Government is not going to apologise, we can find the means by which we can honour, acknowledge, respect and say that we became complicit because it was not like we changed tack. We had this system right up until 1993, so I think we could find a way of acknowledging it. I appreciate we cannot do something about what happened when were a colony but we can acknowledge and honour the fact that we did not deviate when we were not straight afterwards.

Sentiment score: 0.06

On what basis is the Minister making the assumption that the scheme would be improved? Nobody else but the Minister seems to believe it. The Law Society and the Bar Council do not believe it. I have not seen any research that points to it. In fact, the evidence that those in the system would have says that we will have to develop another two-tier criminal system where those who can afford to pay will get better treatment, and because the system is no longer not only profitable but also, realistically, workable, people will be lost from the criminal justice system.

Sentiment score: -0.04

There is not a lot of time left. This is an issue of such importance that I am going to concede my time, if it is okay with the Minister, so that we can have a vote on this particular issue. That might require the Minister to allow a vote to happen. I think that is fair.

Sentiment score: 0.27

We will not have time to finish, though.

Sentiment score: 0.00

Yes, just to allow the vote to happen because once-----

Sentiment score: 0.56