‘I had a theory that if there is something difficult, do it first, you can do the easy things afterwards’
Exactly 25 years ago today homosexuality was decriminalised in Ireland. Here the woman instrumental in that change, former minister for justice Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, describes how she took up the mantle just days into her new job
Máire Geoghegan-Quinn once borrowed a phrase to point out that statistics are people with the tears wiped off. Social change in this country, from marriage equality to repealing the Eighth Amendment, has come about as a result of lifting the statistics and hard facts and looking at the people behind them, with all their tears and all their personal stories and experiences.
In many ways, this process began with the decriminalisation of homosexuality. ...
