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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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I think it’s a disgrace the way elderly people are treated by the government
I think Irish people are also very quick to blame others assuming that it has all responsibility to provide all care for their relatives. We see a lot of old people who could make it home with a bit more support from their families but instead they are left to go into care because of lack of support. Blaming it on ‘the Government’ alone is a cop out.
Agreed!. There were no nursing homes back in the day (I hate that cliche !). Kids grew up with their grannies and granddad around them and they learned from them.Now the grandparents are almost disposable when they are less productive.
I agree that old people are treated dreadfully in this day and age, we had to put my grandmother into a nursing home earlier this year, we all work full time with kids, my uncles the same, people can’t commit to looking after their an elderly person full time, not because they don’t want to but because it’s not feasible!!! In an ideal world we would, but unfortunately with things so tight nowadays people have to work, and when an elderly person is falling a lot and needs full time care there are no other options!
Frances
Who would you like to pay for unlimited access to Nursing Home care. Please don’t trot out the usual Left Wing drivel that the elderly have paid taxes all of their lives. They may have but they certainly haven’t paid one tiny fraction of the costs associated with this new wave of ” elderly management ” as I like to call it.
The average cost of a Nursing Home is somewhere in the region of fifty thousand Euro a year and the average private pension is somewhere in the region of twenty eight thousand Euro a year. Below that figure the principal form of income is the State funded contributory and non contributory pension that wouldn’t cover your meals in a Facility for the aged!
Another real issue is the fact that Nursing Homes run by the State cost some fifty percent more to fund when compared to private facilities and I think we can all agree that in the vast majority of cases the quality and standards of these would substantially favour the latter.
Perhaps you could let us have an answer to my opening question Frances.
Donie, so true. I worked with people from many overseas countries and they were all surprised by this whole concept of nursing homes. Yes some elderly can only be cared for in a nursing home but like many, I too remember as a child my granny and great aunt living with us until their final days. That is the norm in many other countries. Not so anymore. While these delays are awful, it is terrible that I can confidently say that all hospital staff are familiar with the term granny dumping. It is often sad when remembering the sacrifices that parents make for their children, that often the same is not returned when the parents themselves need support.
I think Irish people are also very quick to blame others assuming that it has all responsibility to provide all care for their relatives. We see a lot of old people who could make it home with a bit more support from their families but instead they are left to go into care because of lack of support. Blaming it on âthe Governmentâ alone is a cop out. by home nursing in Bangalore
Agreed!. There were no nursing homes back in the day (I hate that cliche !). Kids grew up with their grannies and granddad around them and they learned from them.Now the grandparents are almost disposable when they are less productive. by home nursing in Bangalore
share this with ten people and try to be a life saver….GOD
gofund.me/Elliotyeswecan
The elderly are the people who have contributed most to our miserable country, and this is the way they are treated. Other people abuse the system and benefit most… What a joke, just makes me angry.
It’s not a nice thing to say, but I’d do myself in before I left myself at the mercy of the Irish state.
Yes, feel the same way. Dreading old age if this is how things are going to happen..
The figures hide the scale of the suffering and the waste of public resources.
Where will older people waiting for a nursing home bed for 12-14 weeks wait? All have been deemed in need of full-time nursing care. Those at home will grow progressively frailer and many will be admitted by their GPs to their local A&E and into an acute hospital bed. Not only do they not need acute hospital care (just nursing care) they will deprive others in need of acute care of a bed. This is a problem — not just for older people who may need a nursing home bed — but for everyone who may need an acute hospital bed.
At the core of the problem is the failure of successive governments to plan for our ageing population. This does not just mean funding for nursing home beds, but also includes a much greater investment in community-based care. Supports such as home helps, home care packages, public health nurses, occupational therapists, day care centres, meals on wheels etc can enable more older people to live for longer in their own homes. Likewise, proper funding for home adaptation schemes would be a great help (funding for the scheme has been slashed this year).
The current problem was clear from late last year when the HSE published its service plan. This is our statement issued on December 18, 2013 http://www.ageaction.ie/age-action-concerned-impact-hse-service-plan-sickest-older-people
http://www.ageaction.ie/age-action-concerned-impact-hse-service-plan-sickest-older-people
Whilst the pressure being placed on our already burdened health service is of grave concern, the worst part about this delay is the effect it has on the quality of life of these older people stuck in acute hospitals!
Due to understaffing and over-crowding, many of these patients spend the vast majority of their days in bed or sitting in a chair with the consequence being that by the time they are placed in a nursing home they can no longer walk and have become incontinent. The real tragedy of this 4 month delay is the physical and psychological toll which this delay takes on our loved ones. We should not simply abide this!
The Government does not care about elderly people, they only cost money, no profit in them. Let the private sector look after them or let the people set up a charity ……Our caring government.
Better off not going all the abuse that they get in them places. A place in Galway had a sweat shop for knitting Aran sweaters. By they time the operation was uncovered bone had already been exposed through the tops of the oaps fingers. Enough is enough
This is just sad and alarming too because the government allows this to happen to older adults. They should be taken good care of and not taken for granted. I hope the government will do something about this and will release the funds right on time and to provide more nursing homes in order to accommodate those who are in need of care. This should be addressed right away since http://www.longtermcare.gov and http://www.ltcoptions.com confirm that around 7 out of 10 of people who are 65 and above will require long term care. To make things worse, there will be a silver tsunami soon and more people will require care inside nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. If the government can’t do it alone, then perhaps its time to create a partnership with private groups or charities that can solve this problem. I really hope the government will put this in its priority list or else a lot of older adults will suffer physically, financially and emotionally as well.
I agree with Michael Nahyan, it’s disgusting they way, they treat are elderly, and why it has to cost so much to look after the elderly is beyond me. , I really feel for them.
I realise it’s important to find nee things to be engraged about, but the waiting-time for one of these places is a non-starter. Nobody suddenly wakes up one day and finds themselves old and unable to care for themselves. It happens over time. There’s plenty of t
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