In August 2020, Jerry Buttimer, the Fine Gael senator, committed what was perhaps the worst mistake of his political career when he attended the Oireachtas Golf Society dinner at a hotel in Clifden, Co Galway. To this day he regrets ever showing up for an event later found by a judge to have complied with Covid-19 laws but which certainly violated the spirit of the pandemic-era government advice encouraging people to avoid mass gatherings in order to contain the deadly virus.

The most notable political casualties of Golfgate were European Commissioner Phil Hogan and agriculture minister Dara Calleary. Understandably there was less focus on Buttimer, who had just been elected Seanad Leas Cathaoirleach weeks earlier but the Cork politician was also forced to resign his office.

He has spent the past two-and-a-half-years in a sort of political purgatory which ended last December when, as part of the coalition deal, he was elected Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, thus becoming the first openly gay constitutional office-holder in the Houses of the Oireachtas.

He has never spoken publicly about his involvement in the Golfgate affair other than when he gave evidence at the high-profile trial last year which ended with four men being acquitted of charges of breaching Covid laws in organising the event. “It was a traumatic time for the country and for those of us that got caught up in it,” Buttimer tells the Sunday Independent this weekend.

“None of us and I certainly never, ever intended in any shape or form to have any insult given to our frontline workers, to people who had lost loved ones and to people affected by Covid in terms of small businesses being under pressure, people struggling in their own way with it. But we did and I regret that every day.”​

He says it was a “very dark period” that had a huge effect on him, his family and his friends. He felt he let people down and hurt them, the abuse on social media and in emails to his office was “horrific” but he is at pains to insist he is not a victim.

“I didn’t speak about it because what was I going to add, what was I going to say. I deeply regret it and I am absolutely sorry that this ever happened, not because I lost a job, but because of the upset and the anger it caused to people,” he says.

He is still involved in the Oireachtas Golf Society as its vice-captain and doesn’t see an issue with this despite the view expressed by Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl that the organisation should be disbanded.

“That’s his view, I’d have a different view to that,” he says, adding it’s a “nice way” for current and former members to meet three or four times a year.

Buttimer has been in the Oireachtas for nearly 16 years, having served as a Senator from 2007 to 2011 and a TD for Cork South-Central between 2011 and 2016, during which time he became the first Fine Gael TD to come out as gay in 2012, and played a prominent role in the party’s efforts to pass the same-sex marriage referendum in 2015.

He sees his current position as important for the message it sends and he will use it to advocate for the rights of LGBTQ+ people. Buttimer plans a series of events to mark the 30th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality later this year. In June, he hopes to welcome the first lesbian governor of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, to address the Seanad as part of Pride celebrations.

He notes the coarsening of public discourse around transgender rights in other countries and says he is among those who have a duty to “rebut that and to act to support all of our citizens”.

He believes a citizens’ assembly on transgender issues would be a worthwhile endeavour.

It could, he suggests, discuss matters such as lowering the age at which a person can legally change their gender and how to involve transgender people more in public and political life. “I would love to see political parties in Ireland, encourage and promote trans people to run,” he says.

“There’s an obligation on all of us to be conscious of the language we use in support of our fellow human beings and these are people with feelings on a journey that deserve our respect, our support, our understanding, not in a patronising way, but in a way that brings real change to support their human rights.”

It is just over a year ago that his father, Jeremiah or Jerry Snr, passed away. He describes it as “a hugely traumatic event” given he “was hale and hearty” at 10am before being taken to hospital just a few hours later after suffering a stroke. He says his father shaped his life in a huge way and was someone who championed public service.

Buttimer is a man of faith, a practising Catholic who, long before he became a politician, trained for the priesthood for five years before returning to lay life. In the face of inherent hostility from the church to people of his sexuality, he insists Pope Francis has “changed the narrative” and that “the majority of priests that I meet are absolutely supportive both pastorally, [and] personally”

He says: “I think the whole church has changed, recognising that its approach in the past hasn’t worked and doesn’t work and there is an outreach and reaching out to people of different sexualities, similarly with separated and divorced Catholics, which I think is important. The church is the people of God, it’s from the ground up, not the top down.”

He is, however, critical of the Burke family, the high-profile outspoken evangelical Christians, who have hit the headlines in recent months amid ongoing legal cases involving Enoch Burke, the secondary school teacher who was caught up in a row over his refusal to address a transgender child by their new name and preferred pronouns.

“I am conscious this is before the courts, but I think their approach is wrong. I think they should be about bringing people, engaging in a meaningful way rather than the way they do,” Buttimer says. “We’ve had them outside the gates of Leinster House here in the past where they’ve been, you know, very anti different campaigns. The judge has made his decision on that, the school have made their decision, that’s a matter for them but I just think megaphone diplomacy never works.”

Buttimer will serve as Cathaoirleach until the next general election is called when he will likely be a running mate of veteran minister Simon Coveney in Cork south-central.

“We get on well, we are competitors, but there is no daggers at dawn approach,” he says. He is ambitious to get back to the Dáil but says he has “matured” in his view that it has to be Dáil only. “We’re all ambitious and we all want to be a minister or serve,” Buttimer says.​