Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Amendments Nos. 6 to 9, inclusive, are similar in nature but they feature different wording as compromises. Sometimes you do not realise how personal a situation is until you have to engage with it in the moment. Although you know it is in the background, you are just trying to move through it. Our first amendment changes the phrasing to “including but not limited to Families founded on marriage”. I was about eight years when I first found out my mam and dad were not married. I stand here and here people talk about protection and the law but it is far from only about protection. The Constitution, as fundamental law underpinning Ireland’s legislation, which develops from it, is a fundamental principle that also underlines both the legislative changes that are needed and how a society views individuals and their situations and family set-ups - whether they are married or live with someone and they do not marry them – whatever it may be. I remember being eight years old and my friend went into the shop to buy an anniversary card for her mam and dad and I remember feeling a bit silly because I did not know what it was and asked her, “What’s an anniversary card?” She said that an anniversary card was how long her mam and dad were married and I said it was interesting. I was not sure I recognised that as a thing in the house. My mind began to turn and turn. I used to go into other houses and see the pictures on the wall of people’s mams and dads getting married with wedding dresses and so on. Then I started to ask questions. I went to church a lot at the time, whether people want to believe it or not. I sang in the choir and played the tin whistle. I was an altar girl and got up every Sunday morning and went to church. That narrative seeped in about what a family was and I was thinking about this when I was eight years old. Whether we like it or not, Catholicism is intertwined with the Constitution and always has been.That is okay if people live a life of Catholicism but if they do not, parts of this Constitution do not represent or recognise them. Whatever about legal protections that flow from it, those parts do not even recognise me as a child and my relationship to my mother and my father. My mother, from that moment, I realised looking back, was afraid to tell me they were not married. She was ashamed. We lived in a situation where people would judge them and not talk to them for not being married. I also listened in religion class as to what the idea of a family was, what marriage was and what sin was, so all of that was in me. At eight years old, when I learned my Mam and Dad were not married, my world fell apart. Imagine being eight and your world falling apart. Your parents do not love you any less. They reared me well, put me into every club and everything I wanted to join. They did my homework with me, taught me how to read, and now something in society had seeped into me that told me that my family was all of a sudden different from every other family on the street and I was less than their families. On top of that, I believed we should not be together and in that I damaged the relationships as I got older with my Mam and Dad because the society that shames seeped in on me as a child. Therefore, this is more than about protection. It is about recognition that there was nothing different about me growing up with my Mam and Dad. Nothing. She should not have had to wear a wedding ring to pretend or go to court to change our names. My name was not always Ruane. I found that out at some stage as well. I was actually a Losty - my name was Lynn Losty - which was my mother's name but my Mam wanted us to feel like a unit, to not feel any different than anybody else and we should have never been made feel like so.

The Constitution's definition of family is what set the framework in Irish thinking on how we morally judge other families who do not get married or who do not want to be married. Then as you go on, my situation is captured in the other amendments regarding the parent-child relationship. I had my first daughter at 15 years old. Obviously, I knew at that stage that she was my daughter and we had other rights outside of the Constitution but then I had to place it again within this. I do not even want to say the word but I remember being in school, or it may have been on trip somewhere, and the "b" word being used for kids that were not from a marriage. Members will all know what word I am referring to. It is obviously a very derogatory term for an illegitimate child. Not only, because of the Constitution and the laws that flow from it, was I not feeling like our family was as good or as valued as everyone else's, I am also taking on some sort of a label as illegitimate. I am not legitimate. The State and Constitution is telling me, as a child, that I am not legitimate. The Constitution is important to change. I know Senator McDowell spoke about the laws we can change in the interim but it is the Constitution that set the mindset that allowed families such as mine be mistreated, misjudged, ostracised, and ashamed, so much so that it affected our interpersonal relationships because I did not know what to do with that shame as a child. This is why it is important to change the Constitution and to not only recognise marriage as the family unit. Senator McDowell asked why should we not protect durable relationships with the same vigour that marriage is protected. Exactly. Why not? We could have put forward an amendment that put them on an equal footing and so could Senator McDowell. However, just as Senator McDowell is saying that legislation could be introduced on pensions and taxation, the State can also introduce legislation after the referendum to makes sure there is a legal framework around cohabitees and the separation of assets and all of those. If the legislation can flow for the O'Meara situation, it can flow on the alternative in terms of what is set out in the changes in the Constitution.

Going on and having my children, I am obviously a little bit wiser and older now and have shaken off some of that Catholic shame regarding what I feel about my family, whether it is a sinful or valued family or whether the State wants to recognise us as a family. I have my two daughters but in the Constitution, we are not considered a family. My daughter is in the Public Gallery with me today. We are not a family. For the past hour, I have had to listen to the talk about protection of marriage and assets and all of this and all I say is my daughter is my asset. Jordanne is my asset. They are my family. They are who I am and nothing can change that in my mind but the Constitution of this State states we are not a family. How would anyone would want to stand over that? She has rights outside of that constitutional wording but given the fact that the blueprint for what Ireland says it wants to be and from where all law should flow says we are not a family, of course we need to change that so all families are included. My daughters have two different Dads. Their Dads have other children from later relationships and my daughter's siblings are also their family but the Constitution does not recognise that as so. Jaelynne and Jordanne each have their siblings. The family is wider. Do I want us all to move in together and start saying we are all a family? No, we are not, but through the bonds they have to each other, they are family and we are family. I then felt the need to make sure the kids each has their Da's names so that they knew there was a connection to their Dads even if the Constitution did not recognise them as family because relationships and identity are so important. I was young and thought if the Constitution did not recognise them, I would make sure, even though we are not married and I have ended up being a single mother very early on with both kids, that they have their Dads' names. I would make sure, even if the Constitution refused to recognise it, they understood that I recognised that relationship with their Dads and that it was sacred to us no matter what the make-up of our family was.

Within that then, what we have is the idea that we do not have to dissolve a situation of cohabiting to move on to be with someone else and cohabit. However, the thing is if you share assets, you still have to split those assets. There is also children's rights. There is still article 42A which sets out children's rights. It is what the O'Meara case was won on yesterday. Therefore, even if somebody is with me and I have two children with them, the children's rights still exist within that in ensuring the provisions are introduced to protect those children whether that be with child maintenance or something else. That is another area where we can protect regarding cohabitees. The child maintenance legislation that I have been drafting, with which Senator Seery Kearney and others have been helping, takes into account all parents whether a one- or two-parent family and sets it out in the same way. Therefore, there are other structures we can build afterwards for the legislative tools that are needed to ensure children are always protected regardless of the relationship status of their parents. Whether parents are married or not should never determine whether a child is catered for or is at risk of experiencing any sort of poverty because of the breakdown of a relationship. Children will always remain in the centre of that, including constitutionally. The problem is, if we do not recognise them as a family, we create a situation where we are still saying that if your parents are married, you are of more value or recognised to a greater degree.