Michael McNamara (Clare, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her comprehensive reply. I do not doubt that the Minister has received this advice, even if I might not necessarily agree with it. The Attorney General's office is the Attorney General's office. Ministers and Governments are bound to follow the advice of the Attorney General's office. The 2010 Act introduced cohabitation and provided for the rights of cohabitees. If civil partnership is somehow a competitor to marriage, I suggest that the same thing must apply to cohabitation and giving rights to cohabitees. I am not entirely convinced by the rationale we have heard.

The Minister is right when she says that civil partnership is a marriage-like institution. I do not necessarily know why it has to be a marriage-like institution. I do not know why the long-standing consanguinity impediments to marriage in Judeo-Christian traditions and Roman law, which predated marriage as a Christian institution, were introduced into civil partnership. I remind the Minister that the concept underpinning civil partnership is that it gives rights to people living together as a family unit who wish to obtain legal protection for that unit and to give rights to each other in the event that something happens. A common example of that in Ireland would be two elderly siblings who live together in a fairly dependent way. They no have rights under the Mental Health or Pensions Acts or anything else. If something happens one sibling, the other sibling has no rights even though they have been living together as a family for their entire lives, albeit obviously in a non-intimate way. Irish law provides very little protection to people in such circumstances. Why do we need to have the consanguinity impediments in civil partnership? I do not know why civil partnership cannot be open to people who are not otherwise in a civil partnership or married, but are in a non-intimate relationship. I note that intimacy is not a requirement for being treated as a cohabitee, although I suppose it is presumed that the couple were intimate at one point. One way of avoiding this idea of competition would be to change the nature of civil partnership and open it up.

I would also like to make the point that marriage is a permanent institution, notwithstanding the divorce legislation in Ireland. It has to be demonstrated that a marriage is irretrievably broken down in order to have it dissolved or to obtain a divorce. The same thing does not apply to civil partnership. They are two very different institutions. I do not really see that one necessarily competes with the other. People choose to marry or cohabit or whatever. I think there are other ways around it. I would like to flag my intention at this stage to look into the matter further with a view to proposing an amendment on Report Stage.