The Government should honour its commitment to disregard the criminal records of gay men who were convicted of historic offences.
That's according to Sinn Féin Senator Fintan Warfield, who has said this move will come too late for many people affected.
The Programme for Government included a commitment to introduce a scheme for the expunging of criminal records.
In 2018, an apology was offered to the LGBTQ community on behalf of the State.
The Department of Justice also set up a Working Group to examine any such disregard of convictions, with a report said to be imminent.
Senator Warfield told Breakfast Briefing it is important for the families of these men as well.
"In many ways it's going to come too late for many, especially those no longer with us," he said.
"But for many of those men it's important to reclaim the dignity and humanity for those who were imprisoned - as much as for their surviving families.
"Families that were forced to carry a kind of burden of shame, taboo, criminality attached to homosexuality.
"Many people just left our country as well, so many people won't be here".
Expunge v disregard
Senator Warfield said the language is also important.
"We've moved from the language of 'expunge', which was in the Programme for Government, to a language of 'disregard'," he said.
"Eliminating the records I suppose would eliminate evidence of the injustice.
"We don't want to make it difficult for historians and for researches, so 'disregard' is the Working Group proposal.
"There is a concern that it's slow, and that's what we we are trying to [do]: just light a fire under this issue".
Senator Warfield said time is running out for the Government.
"The lifetime of this Government is running out, so if they don't have legislation drafted very soon - or during the summer - this is going to be very difficult to get through the Houses," he said.
"Ideally the legislation will have begun and we'll try and tease that out with the Minister today".
It is thought about 1,000 people would be affected by any disregard of criminal records.
