It is time Bill was dealt with. It is good to see that the Minister has acted on the prompting of my colleague Deputy Ó Snodaigh. It is good to have this debate in the Chamber. I thank everybody who has got it to this stage, including the guys up in the Gallery who have pushed for it. The Minister promised this would happen in February but he has acknowledged that he is a few weeks behind. I hope he is going to rectify that and get it to Committee, Report and Final Stages. This about putting wrongs to right and lifting State-imposed burdens that destroyed lives. As a member of the rainbow caucus within the Oireachtas, I will state we seek a speedy resolution to this and urge that the Bill be passed. It is but one of the 95 recommendations set out in a report published in 2023. Today, we are focusing on the establishment of a legislative scheme to enable the disregard of relevant criminal records. There was violent persecution and entrapment of those suspected of male same-sex intimacy. They were deliberately hunted by the State authorities. They were hunted to humiliate them and their families, to put their jobs in jeopardy, and to cause their landlords, local churches, clubs and so on to learn about them. Every aspect of life was threatened by the State authorities. They were interrogated and fired from their jobs. Moral panic was enthusiastically encouraged, aided and abetted by State agencies. This fuelled further moral panic. The decriminalisation of sexual acts between men was officially achieved in 1993. As was said earlier, this removed the colonial-era laws of the Brits that had previously been in force here. Among the activists involved was a man with whom I served a term, the bold former Senator, David Norris. He took the legal challenge. He worked on it for 16 years and took the challenge in 1987. His tenacity and his boldness have to be acknowledged, as do the guys in the Chamber from the LGBT+ Restorative Justice Campaign. They did not let go and did not back down. We need to acknowledge what happened prior to 1993 and the suffering that the secrecy brought. It is known too well in many sectors in Ireland. We are good at secrets, we are good at hiding, we are good at locking away, we are good at humiliating and we are good at isolating and hunting others who may be perceived as different. There were 900 odd convictions. Those included young 15- to 17-year-olds who were convicted for intimate behaviour. It was under the British occupation and their rules at the time, but it was also carried on with our own rules within this State. We did not seem to be bothered about having a look at them and trying to change them to make things better from a human rights perspective. It seemed like a throwback to Victorian era, but it is recent and, as Deputy O'Reilly said, it is within easy living memory. We also had members of the Defence Forces who were convicted in military courts for having same-sex sexual relationships. To be discharged dishonourably and shamed must have been horrific for them. Like many working class inner-city girls in the 1980s, I did not feel that I had a future in this country. I left and started nursing in Brighton. I did not know about this stuff, but Brighton was like a Mecca for gay and bisexual people to gather and feel safe. It was a safe enough haven. There was a lot of different hatred towards them, but it was a safe enough haven. I was a young student nurse, a Dub from Dublin 8. I told my friend Ciarán about me being present in an admissions ward and the British police came along. They were not arresting me at that time but they came along with a young man who was from the country in Ireland. He was from Tipperary. He was bound by his hands and feet. They literally threw him in the door of the hospital. He had fled from Ireland, as so many others that I met in the small Irish community in Brighton had, because there was nothing there for them. They could not live their lives as they wanted to. They were a shame on their families. As Deputy O'Reilly said, a stigma existed. They fled and were disregarded. They were sent away and exported. It was also the time of the very beginnings of the HIV epidemic, and it was that double whammy. Some of the poor young men who were struggling with being far from home and being disregarded by home also contracted HIV. The fear that was around at the time was just enormous among all the population. They did not have anybody to turn to. They did not have the comforting warm embrace of a mam, dad, brother or a sister. They survived very much alone and that was an absolute tragedy when I think back on it. I was very upset by it at the time but I did not know what to do because none of us were sure what this epidemic would bring. It brought a lot of sadness to already isolated and emotionally impoverished people. I have a couple of asks of the Minister of State. The first is that we progress the Bill whatever way we can. The Minister said he would. Whatever way we can, let us progress it urgently. Second, can we please find funding for research into historical cases and the social history - the wrong history - of what occurred in this country prior to 1993? We need to be very proud when this Bill passes because it will have repercussions internationally. It will reverberate around those countries that still have this criminalisation and show us in a positive light as did the marriage equality referendum. It will send a message to a very disturbed world, a world that has recently risen up with much hate and a lot of chaos. I urge the Minister of State to act with urgency. Let us get this across the line. Tá sé in am.

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