Legal complications could prevent the granting of a general pardon to people convicted of homosexual offences before the law was changed in 1993.

This month marks the 25 anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality by the then minister for justice Máire Geoghegan Quinn.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told the Dáil there will be a cross-party motion debated in the chamber that will recognise the wrongs that were done.

There will also be a Government event to remember the day the law was changed on 24 June 1993.

However, complications have arisen around the question of a pardon.

"In some cases the convictions involved minors and it's not necessarily possible in all case to distinguish whether the offence involved a minor or not; and that's a point that makes it a little bit trickier in Ireland," the Taoiseach said.

The Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin, said that up to the mid -1970s many members of the LGBT community were convicted "simply on charges of being gay."