Mr. Gearóid Kenny Moore:

Professor O'Mahony has outlined the issue around extending guardianship. I would like to address the damage done to children as a result of not being legally recognised as the children of both their parents or their intended parents. Earlier, we discussed a significant number of matters around medical issues, foreign travel, accessing passports, tax and inheritance, so we have addressed a significant number of the issues that occur daily for our families. What we have not had an opportunity to think or talk about is how our children are classified as inferior to the children who live next door to them because, although they are born typically to married parents, they are considered to have only one parent.

On a personal level, my children are very young. As I mentioned, our oldest twins are three and a half years, yet they are already starting to realise some of the differences between them and the families around them. They have already recognised, obviously, that they do not have a mother, but as life goes on they will see scenarios where their family is treated in an inferior way. If we want to go on a family holiday and my husband is already abroad, I will need a letter from him to bring my children out of the jurisdiction. They will see scenarios where I will have to tick the guardian box on certain application forms rather than the parent box. There will be all sorts of subtle differences that emerge as the children grow older. As they get older, their understanding and perception of those differences will become very tangible and real.

It is my belief, having grown up as a gay man in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, when it was illegal for me to be gay, that when you are treated by the State as an inferior person, you actually take on certain disadvantages, either emotionally or psychologically, from being treated in a second-class, different or inferior way. Even though the differences for our children are probably less pronounced than those that existed for me as a gay man, they do exist, the children will be aware of them and they will, I believe, have an impact on them. The level of impact has never been quantified but it will have an impact on them for them to know their family unit is valued somewhat less by the State than other family units around them. I cannot quantify it other than the examples we have given but it is definitely a real scenario that has been addressed by psychologists over the years. When you label somebody as different and inferior, it does impact them.