Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)
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It is the implementation of the letter of the law. It is open to Mr. Moran to correspond with us in relation to the amendment that he is proposing and to send it to me as Chair or to the clerk, as appropriate, as a formal proposal, and I hope he does so. We would very much welcome that. It will help us in our discussions. This is the second time he has been before the committee and I do not want him for a moment to imagine that we do not propose to take any action. However, we want to get a full picture so that we can consider it as a committee. Mr. Moran can hear from the members that there is considerable support, if that is the right word. I am not asking people to step outside of any comfort zones, but we see that the intention of the legislation was good, positive and progressive, etc. The intention was that everyone would be encompassed. I do not propose to ask Deputy Bacik where she got the figure of 36 months from but, in fairness to her and others, I have a feeling it was done to spread the net wide and catch as many people as possible. If we check back on the debates, I seriously doubt that the intention was to exclude people. However, we have now arrived at the point where people have been excluded, whether that was the intention or not.

It is sort of immaterial to Mr. Moran because he is excluded from it. Somebody saying they did not want that to happen is not going to change it. To a certain extent, without a time machine, we cannot fix that which has gone before. However, as a committee, we can have a discussion and make recommendations, as appropriate.

Mr. Moran said the numbers that would potentially be involved are very small. I also suspect that they are small. Perhaps we can have some discussion about how we can establish what the number would be. Obviously, no Minister - and the current Minister is the same as every other Minister - wants to press the button on opening the floodgates in respect of a large number. If we can establish that is not the case, however, perhaps that can inform our discussion as well. I share the view that the number is not massive.

Going back to the discussions that Mr. Moran would have had in terms of opting out of the scheme, there was no discussion about the fact that he might potentially benefit. I am trying to place this in context for people who might not remember that. It would not have been a consideration. Nobody would have said to him, “You can opt out if you want, but you never know, you might have reason to opt in in the future. It might be worthwhile staying in because there could be equality legislation coming down the road.” That could not have been envisaged. Although now that we have comprehensive equality legislation and marriage equality, it is hard to imagine what it was like before. It was somewhat archaic.