Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I thank the Acting Chairman.

The Labour Party has a long and proud tradition of advancing social and personal freedom. I congratulate my colleague, Deputy Howlin, on introducing this Bill and giving all politicians in this House an opportunity to debate it and to cast their vote in favour or against it tomorrow evening.

It is difficult for those born after 1980 to sometimes recall that there were once severe discriminations against women, particularly married women, children born outside marriage and gay people, who were criminalised up to 1993 when a Fianna Fáil-Labour Government decriminalised homosexual acts between consenting adults. Severe discrimination existed on the right of access to contraception, which was addressed by both Deputy Howlin, as Minister for Health, and by his predecessor, the then Minister, Barry Desmond. The right to civil divorce was piloted through by the rainbow Government of Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left and by the former Minister, Mervyn Taylor. How much damage was done in all those years of discrimination against people in all sorts of circumstances? When the law was changed, Ireland became a better place, not a perfect place but a better place, particularly for those people who suffered those myriad discriminations.

This Bill proposed by the Labour Party follows that tradition, which is to allow recognition and registration of civil unions between same sex couples. I understand that the President of Poland, a state visitor to our country, made derogatory comments today about gay people and culture being a threat to the survival of the human race. That is regrettable in the context of the contribution gay people have made not only to the culture, literature and music of Poland, but in general to many aspects of life in the past and to life today.

In many ways Bills such as this one attempt to rebut crass and gross discrimination to ensure people can walk tall and live their own lives in harmony as their sexual orientation dictates. As a State, we should encourage stable, long-term, enduring and loving relationships by granting them status and recognition. As a State, we have done that up to now in regard to the family and marriage and recognised it in a particular way. It is appropriate that we now extend that by way of this legislation.

I look forward to the day when we see people celebrating same sex unions in the company of their friends and their families, as we have seen in other jurisdictions in recent years. Countries are generally better where personal happiness, liberty and freedom are exercised.

At present, a gay couple finds it difficult to secure recognition of status in terms of next of kin. I am particularly aware of loving, long-term gay relationships where one partner becomes ill and the other has no legal status as next of kin, often up to the moment of death. That is particularly distressing and painful. Similarly, in respect of shared assets, such as a home, where one partner dies, particularly where the deceased partner has died without making a will, the surviving partner in a gay relationship may not only be bereft but could be effectively destitute and homeless.

I reiterate that this Labour Party Bill seeks to create an equivalent status relationship for the benefit of persons who are of the same sex. It provides that in most respects the rules of law applying to marriage will also apply to civil unions. Article 41.3.1 of the Constitution states: "The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of marriage ..." This Bill seeks to create a parallel situation for those who cannot marry under our Constitution and, therefore, the provisions of the Bill run parallel to marriage rather than in competition with it. The Bill seeks to assimilate the general law as to the capacity to enter a civil union with capacity to marry. The law as to notification, solemnisation and registration of a civil union under this Bill will be similar to the law applicable to marriage and Part 6 of the Civil Registration Act 2004 will apply accordingly.

As my colleague, Deputy Howlin, said, this Bill also introduces a number of reforms of adoption law, basically taking into account various elements of the universal declaration on the rights of the child, namely, the right of a child to know his or her family and for the rights of the child to be foremost in legislation relating to children. Some Members of this House may be uncomfortable and even opposed to the notion that approximately 50,000 people have been adopted since adoption law was introduced here in early 1950s. The Official Report of that debate in the late 1940s and early 1950s, if anybody cares to check it, reveals that a considerable number of Members of the Dáil and Seanad objected to children gaining a right to be adopted into a family on the grounds that they followed the reservations of the Roman Catholic Church, which were stated repeatedly from 1930s onwards and which reflected the notion of the fear of a stranger's child entering a family and thereby acquiring inheritance rights.

I do not believe that any Member of this House or of the Seanad today would object in terms of the stringent objections to the notion of adoption made in the 1930s to 1950s. We must to bear in mind that life moves on and it is our job, as a Legislature, to reflect the society in which we live and to offer people the freedom to enter into civil relationships and to have their relationships publicly acknowledged and celebrated by themselves, their families and friends.

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