served public health and the institution of marriage. In 1988, Norris took a case to the European Court of Human Rights to argue that Irish law was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The court, in the case of Norris v. Ireland, ruled that the criminalisation of male homosexuality in the Republic violated Article 8 of the Convention, which guarantees the right to privacy in personal affairs. The Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) decriminalised male homosexuality five years later, when the Minister for Justice, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, in the 1992–1994 Fianna Fáil—Labour Coalition Government included decriminalisation with an equal age of consent (an equal age of consent was not required by the ECHR ruling) in a bill to deal with various sexual offences. None of the parties represented in the Oireachtas opposed decriminalisation. Coincidentally, the task of signing the bill decriminalising male homosexual acts fell to the then President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, an outspoken defender of gay rights who as a barrister and Senior Counsel had represented Norris in his Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights case. Apology On 19 June 2018, as a result of a Labour Party motion proposed by Ged Nash, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar issued a public apology to members of the LGBT community for the suffering and discrimination they faced from the Irish state prior to the legalisation of homosexuality in 1993. Speaking to the Oireachtas, he said: Justice Minister Charles Flanagan also issued an apology to members of the LGBT community who suffered as a result of the criminalisation of homosexuality, saying: Recognition of same-sex relationships Civil partnerships Prior to the legalisation of same-sex marriage, civil partnership was permitted. A civil partnership bill was presented to the Cabinet on 24 June 2009 and was published on 26 June. Although most LGBT advocacy groups cautiously welcomed the legislation, there had been criticisms of the proposal. One major criticism stated that the legislation effectively enshrined discrimination in law insofar as separate contractual arrangements with greater privileges continued to exist for opposite-sex marriages concurrent to lesser arrangements for those wishing to take out civil partnerships. In particular, the denial of the right to apply to adopt to couples with a civil partnership had been cited as particularly discriminatory. The bill passed all stages in Dáil Éireann on 1 July 2010 with cross-party support resulting in it passing without a vote, and passed by a margin of