[5] Since July 2015, transgender people in Ireland can self-declare their gender for the purpose of updating passports, driving licences, obtaining new birth certificates, and getting married.

The judgment of Chief Justice Tom O'Higgins referred to the "Christian nature of [the Irish] State" and argued that criminalisation served public health and the institution of marriage.

On 19 June 2018, as a result of a Labour Party motion proposed by Ged Nash,[23][24] 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.

The bill was signed into law by President Mary McAleese on 19 July, enacted as the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010.

[41] In that case, Dr Lydia Foy, a transgender woman, sought a finding that she was born female but suffered from a congenital disability and claimed that the existing legal regime infringed her constitutional rights to marry a biological man.

[42][43] Foy had also issued new proceedings in 2006 relying on a new ECHR Act, which gave greater effect to the European Convention on Human Rights in Irish law.

McKechnie J was very reproachful of the government in his judgment and asserted that, because there is no express provision in the Civil Registration Act, which was enacted after the Goodwin decision, it must be questioned as to whether the State deliberately refrained from adopting any remedial measures to address the ongoing problems.

The judge concluded that by reason of the absence of any provision which would enable the acquired identity of Foy to be legally recognised in this jurisdiction, the state is in breach of its positive obligations under Article 8 of the Convention.

The referendum passed by a majority of 62.7%[7] and added the wording "Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex" to the Constitution.

[57] The bill was published on 19 February 2015, ratified by both houses of the Oireachtas by 30 March 2015 and was signed into law on 6 April 2015, becoming the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015.

[71][72] In January 2019, the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, announced that the government had published a bill that would amend the Civil Registration Act 2004 and allow lesbian couples who have had donor-assisted children in an Irish fertility clinic to register as their parents.

The Civil Registration Act 2019 (Irish: An tAcht um Chlárú Sibhialta, 2019) was signed into law by President Michael D. Higgins on 23 May 2019, which is the fourth anniversary of the same-sex marriage referendum.

[75][76] The Irish Independent reported in November 2019 that a fertility clinic in Dublin was offering reciprocal IVF services to lesbian couples.

[77] In March 2021, a female same-sex couple from County Cork was the first to be recognised as parents on their own child's birth certificate in Ireland - despite the law legally being passed and implemented just over 5 years ago.

These laws forbid discrimination in any of the following areas: employment, vocational training, advertising, collective agreements, the provision of goods and services, and other publicly available opportunities.

This decision was condemned in a leading article and opinion piece in the Irish Examiner on 24 June 2015 as being contrary to the spirit of the Marriage Referendum but remains government policy.

The amendment would remove the provision in the Act allowing religious-run schools to dismiss teachers and staff on the sole basis of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

The decision to prepare a report follows a recent announcement by the Minister for Defence, David Andrews, that military regulations would be modified to take account of any reform in the civil law on homosexuality.

[95] On 19 October 2007, Dr. Lydia Foy won her case in the High Court which ruled that the failure to allow her to obtain a new birth certificate recording her gender as female was in breach of her rights under the ECHR.

[100] No legislation had been introduced by February 2013 and Foy commenced new legal proceedings seeking to enforce the decision made by the High Court in 2007.

It further found that Ireland had only one public trans health provider, which was severely understaffed, and that patients seeking care there were reportedly denied for reasons including being on social welfare, having a diagnosis of ADHD, or not answering a series of "highly sexualized questions" in "the right way", leading many Irish trans people to turn to alternative methods of securing healthcare including the private sector and self-administering hormone therapy.

[111] In March 2018, Senator Fintan Warfield (Sinn Féin) introduced a bill to Seanad Éireann to ban conversion therapy on LGBT people.

This followed intense campaigning on the issue by activists over a number of years, including a judicial review challenge to the policy in the Irish High Court.

Heneghan's previous sexual activity posed no risk of infection, according to HSE-approved advice and he said the service had no evidence upon which it could legitimately impose a lifelong ban on him donating blood.

[134] On 20 May 2019, Heneghan initiated a fresh legal challenge in the High Court against the blanket deferral on men who have had oral or anal sex with another man in the previous 12-month period.

[135][136][137][138] Heneghan argued that the questionnaire did not enable the IBTS to make a full evaluation of the level of risk presented by an individual donor due to their sexual behaviour.

The killing of Declan Flynn, a thirty-year-old gay man, on 10 September 1982 led to Ireland's first LGBT public march, held in Dublin's Fairview Park, the scene of the crime.

In 1993, Ireland officially decriminalised homosexuality, celebrated as a landmark victory by LGBT groups, which had filed suit up to the European Court of Human Rights to strike down the ban.

Societal change towards the LGBT community has been attributed to, among others, a decline in Catholicism in Ireland, which was previously "omnipotent" and played a big influence in both public and private life.

[146] The 2023 Eurobarometer found that 86% of Irish thought same-sex marriage should be allowed throughout Europe, and 83% agreed that "there is nothing wrong in a sexual relationship between two persons of the same sex".