Ireland's proposed ban on conversion practices

What has the Irish government proposed on conversion practices, and would it cover exploratory therapy?

Ireland does not, as of September 2026, have an enacted statute specifically prohibiting “conversion therapy” or “conversion practices”. The Government’s stated policy is to introduce one. The relevant proposed Government measure is generally called the Prohibition of Conversion Practices Bill , but no published Heads of Bill or full Bill text has yet set out its operative definitions, defences, offences, evidential thresholds or sanctions.

Background

Ireland does not, as of September 2026, have an enacted statute specifically prohibiting “conversion therapy” or “conversion practices”. The Government’s stated policy is to introduce one. The relevant proposed Government measure is generally called the Prohibition of Conversion Practices Bill, but no published Heads of Bill or full Bill text has yet set out its operative definitions, defences, offences, evidential thresholds or sanctions.

This distinction matters. A political commitment, a Ministerial statement and a Bill listed for drafting are not law. They do not tell parents, clinicians, schools, pastoral workers or courts exactly what conduct would be criminalised. The latest public Oireachtas committee work programme located for this dossier, dated 21 January 2026, still describes the Heads as being in preparation (Joint Committee on Children and Equality, 2026).

The policy has a longer history. Senator Fintan Warfield and others introduced the private members’ Prohibition of Conversion Therapies Bill 2018 on 25 April 2018. It proposed a broad ban covering practices or treatments seeking to change, suppress or eliminate a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. That earlier Bill was not enacted, and it is not the same thing as the Government’s unpublished proposal.

In February 2023, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth published An Exploration of Conversion Therapy Practices in Ireland, commissioned from Trinity College Dublin. The report supplied much of the public policy basis for legislation. It used the umbrella terms sexual-orientation change efforts and gender-identity change efforts, and concluded that such practices occur in Ireland (Keogh et al., 2023).

What the documents say

The clearest public statement of the Government’s intended direction came from Minister O’Gorman in the Dáil on 20 June 2023. He said legislation would cover both sexual orientation and gender identity; create new criminal-law offences; and prohibit advertising. Crucially, he also said that conversations between parents and children would not be banned, and that medical and social-care professionals supporting people who were questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity would not be captured (Dáil Éireann, 2023).

That is a significant assurance, but it is not draft legislation. The 30 April 2025 written answer from the responsible Department used similarly careful language: officials were considering principles intended both to protect people from harmful conversion practices and to ensure that “necessary and appropriate services” for people with concerns about sexual orientation and gender identity were not affected (Department of Children, Disability and Equality, 2025).

The 2018 Bill and identity exploration

The 2018 private members’ Bill provides the most concrete Irish legislative wording available, though it should not be presented as the Government’s current text. Its definition excluded a practice or treatment that did not seek to change sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. It specifically excluded assistance during gender transition, and support, understanding, coping assistance, social support, identity exploration and development, including sexual-orientation-neutral interventions (Prohibition of Conversion Therapies Bill, 2018).

On its face, that formulation would not have prohibited exploratory therapy merely because it involved discussion of identity, distress, family circumstances, sexuality, mental health, autism, trauma or possible outcomes. The legal dividing line was purpose: did the practitioner seek to change, suppress or eliminate the person’s stated sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression?

The Trinity report shows why the boundary is contested. Its survey and interview material included religious and professional attempts to alter identity, but it also recorded participants interpreting therapists’ barriers to gender-affirming care, or the closing down of discussion about gender identity, as conversion therapy. The report itself acknowledges that its 278-person survey was non-probability sampling, not statistically representative of the wider LGBTI+ population, and that its interview findings were not generalisable (Keogh et al., 2023).

The National Gender Service has also appeared in the parliamentary record. In June 2024, Deputy Patrick Costello asked the Minister for Health which National Gender Service practices might be adversely affected by a conversion-therapy ban, referring to October 2023 clinical-governance minutes. The Minister referred the matter to the HSE for a direct response. The published written answer did not supply the underlying explanation (Dáil Éireann, 2024). This is a relevant unresolved point, not proof that any particular clinical practice would be unlawful.

Professional guidance

The Memorandum of Understanding signed in July 2024 by the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland, the Psychological Society of Ireland and the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy is not legislation and creates no contractual obligations. It defines conversion therapy as therapy proceeding from the assumption that some sexual orientations or gender identities are inferior and seeking change or suppression on that basis. It also says the memorandum does not deny, discourage or exclude people with uncertain feelings around sexuality or gender identity from obtaining qualified, appropriate help (Memorandum of Understanding, 2024).

The Cass Review is a British review, not an Irish legal authority, but it is relevant to the clinical language now used in this debate. Its final report warned that “affirmative” and “exploratory” have become polarised terms and said psychological therapies for young people with gender-related distress should not be overshadowed by the conversion-practices debate (Cass Review, 2024).

The positions

Supporters of a comprehensive, trans-inclusive ban argue that a law must cover attempts to suppress, discourage or deny a person’s gender identity as well as efforts to change sexual orientation. They argue that a narrow ban focused only on overt coercion, violence or religious rituals would leave harmful professional practices untouched. They also argue that some approaches described as exploratory can be conversion practices in substance if they begin from the presumption that transition is undesirable, treat a trans identity as pathology, or make affirmation contingent on proving an alternative explanation.

Those concerned about overbreadth agree that coercive, degrading and outcome-driven attempts to make gay people heterosexual should be prohibited. Their concern is that the extension of “conversion practices” to gender identity could criminalise or chill ordinary clinical assessment: open-ended discussion of a young person’s distress, co-existing mental-health difficulties, sexuality, safeguarding, developmental history, family context and the risks and implications of medical treatment. They point to the Government’s own assurances about appropriate support and to the 2018 Bill’s explicit identity-exploration exclusion.

A sound legal framework must distinguish intent, method, power imbalance, harm and professional standards. It must also distinguish a practitioner who directs a client towards a predetermined identity outcome from one who helps a client examine uncertainty without a predetermined destination.

Interpretation

Beyond Gender’s reading: the Government has proposed a ban in principle, including criminal offences and an advertising restriction, but it has not yet published the legal wording needed to establish whether exploratory therapy would be protected. Therefore, neither claim can presently be stated as fact: that exploratory therapy definitely will be banned, or that it definitely will be safeguarded.

The available Irish record nevertheless contains two important signals. First, Minister O’Gorman’s June 2023 statement expressly said that supportive medical and social-care work with people questioning sexuality or gender identity should not be caught. Secondly, the 2018 Irish Bill expressly protected identity exploration when not aimed at changing identity. These are strong indicators of an intended distinction, but they are not enforceable safeguards unless reproduced clearly in the eventual Bill.

The risk lies in vague wording such as “suppress”, “discourage”, “deny” or “conversion practice” without a clear requirement of improper purpose and without a robust clinical exemption. A therapist should not be required to affirm a particular self-description, recommend social or medical transition, or avoid clinically relevant questions in order to escape an accusation. Equally, “exploration” must not be a label for a process designed from the outset to dissuade a gay, lesbian or gender-distressed person from a disfavoured outcome.

The appropriate test is not whether therapy is labelled affirmative or exploratory. It is whether the practitioner is acting competently, ethically and without an a priori objective to change or suppress the client’s sexual orientation or asserted gender identity.

Open questions

Will the Government publish a definition that requires an intention to change or suppress, rather than relying primarily on a client’s subjective experience of feeling challenged or unsupported? Will it include an explicit provision protecting good-faith, developmentally appropriate clinical assessment and open-ended psychotherapy? Will the protection apply equally to children, adolescents and adults?

Further questions concern consent, parental involvement, religious settings, online advertising, professional regulation and cross-border conduct. Ireland’s Government legislation applies in the Republic. Northern Ireland is a separate jurisdiction with its own legislature and, in 2026, its own proposed Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill. Reporting should not conflate the two.

The HSE and National Gender Service should also clarify, through published evidence and clinical governance material, what aspects of assessment or service development they considered potentially affected by an overbroad ban. The eventual General Scheme should be published for pre-legislative scrutiny, so that clinicians, parents, former patients, safeguarding specialists, legal experts and journalists can test its wording before criminal law is enacted.

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