Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Fianna Fáil strongly supports the legislation before the House today. We held a vote at our Ard-Fheis in 2012 where our members endorsed equal marriage for same-sex couples. They also voted in favour of equal adoption rights for same-sex couples.

As a republican party, we believe in equality for all citizens, be they male or female, black or white, gay or straight. It is a core principle of our party and it is one that was reiterated earlier this week when we held our own event to launch a programme of events to commemorate 1916. It is particularly fitting that this legislation is progressing now in advance of the centenary of the Easter Rising next year. As a people, we now have an opportunity to genuinely bring through the ideals of our founding fathers in the Proclamation and ensure that we deliver a society that treats "all of the children of the nation equally". For that reason, we support the referendum.

My party's director of elections, Deputy Niall Collins, has already undertaken a national tour organising public meetings around the country. For my own part, I am knocking on doors five times a week in my area and helping groups, such as Marriage Equality and Yes Equality, doing canvassing training to ensure that there is a ground war on this as well.It is very important that people get an opportunity to interact with those who are campaigning for a "Yes" vote, to ask us questions and to understand for themselves what the campaign is really about. Unfortunately, much of that gets lost in the media coverage because of the restrictive rules based on the way the Coughlan judgment has been applied, which results in a situation in which there is a 50:50 debate on everything-----