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This article has been updated to reflect that the bill still has to pass through a number of legislative stages in the Seanad.
A BILL WHICH aims to ban LGBTQ conversion therapies in Ireland has passed through its second stage in the Seanad today.
Currently, there is one service provider of conversion therapy in the State, and Senator Fintan Warfield, who proposed the bill, said it is about protecting LGBTQ people.
“I look forward to the further legislative stages of the bill,” Warfield said.
Here’s an explainer on how a bill becomes a law.
The Prohibition of Conversion Therapies Bill 2018 would make it illegal for any person to perform or offer to perform conversion therapy on a person. It would also make it illegal to advertise conversion therapy. A person could be fined up to €5,000 and/or imprisoned for up to six months for either of these.
It would also make it unlawful for a person to remove a person from the State for conversion therapy. A person could be fined up to €10,000 and/or imprisoned for up to 12 months for this.
It would make it illegal for a professional to perform conversion therapy on a person, irrespective of whether monetary compensation is received in exchange; and to refer a person to other professionals or to any other person to perform conversion therapy. A person convicted under this part of the act could be fined up to €10,000 and/or jailed for up to 12 months.
“The bill not only bans the deceptive and discredited practice of LGBTQI conversion therapy, but it sends a message from this State that we consider sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression to be inherent to a person and as such cannot be changed or converted,” Warfield said.
The bill says that ‘conversion therapy’ means:
any practice or treatment by any person that seeks to change, suppress and, or eliminate a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and, or gender expression; and
does not include any practice or treatment, which does not seek to change a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and, or gender expression, or which– provides assistance to an individual undergoing a gender transition; or provides acceptance, support and understanding of a person, or a facilitation of a person’s coping, social support and identity exploration and development, including sexual orientation-neutral interventions.
Speaking of the bill in March, Warfield said: “What we are dealing with is the legacy of criminalisation … if we put the shoe on the other foot, this practice wouldn’t be appropriate for heterosexual people, so I think it’s time to end the practice and prohibit it in law.”
Warfield noted today that Brazil, Malta and Ecuador are the only countries in the world to have enacted nationwide bans on “a practice that has been discredited worldwide by institutions such as the UN Committee against Torture, the European Parliament and by the Irish Council for Psychotherapy”.
“I am heartened that, today, the Seanad has passed this bill and sent a message to our LGBTQI community, both here and worldwide, that we value them and celebrate their identities,” Warfield said.
With reporting by Aoife Barry.
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Go noonan, there is only one way you can satisfy electorate, burn senior bondholders or else loose all respect from us, If you back out.
He looks like a bull dog chewing a wasp, but I think hes the only one with any guts and backbone in the Government and that he has found his place in Finance. Burn ‘em Michael, look after Ireland before the EU currency! The EU will do everything it can to keep the Euro so tell ‘em we will burn them all, close the banks and open our own new bank not linked to EU based on Irish deposits and then see what they have to say about interet rates and corporation tax – tell ‘em will cut that too if they mention it again !
Could Ireland being getting a pair of liathroidi. About time.
Merkle and sarkozi (which my iPhone autocorrects to ‘warlock’ ha!) are so reluctant to burn the bondholders because most of them are French and German. It has everything to do with protecting their own patch and trying to get re-elected, and nothing to do with the good of Europe as a whole. We need to be part of Europe, but the cowtowing and grovelling needs to be over. The bondholders should have to carry their own pain, it was a failed investment. If they could reap the benefits, which they did, they should have to take the burden as well.
It’s like a poker game out there , and Noonan has the face and the balls to get us a better deal .who else would you send ,(he’s from Limerick )
Anyone explain how a Greek default would have consequences for Ireland?
Just wondering.
Putting more debt on top of more debt in Greece is solving nothing………and very bad financial advice…………I hope the people on the streets of Greece win….
The euro is a cobbled together currency and is doomed to failure,its only function is to keep Merkin and Kermit important in their own minds.
Several of the newspaper pundits forecast [ some six months ago ?] that the real crunch would come here in June/July when the fight to pay bills got too much and when the money borrowed from family and friends to avoid the shame of not paying the mortgage dried up.I think one writer gave advice on how to stuff the building society and keep the roof over ones head by using the courts ? Will we see this happen in the next few weeks?
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