Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

It is the same issue, namely, there are people in our society who are not in a position to enter into a marriage, for one reason or another, but who want to have legal recognition for the attributes of mutual dependency which arise out of their relationship.

The third point is that the Bill assumes the only set of recognition principles this House will make available to anybody is a status equivalent to marriage. Gay and lesbian people who do not want that get nothing under the Bill. If a person does not sign up to the full marital relationship, he or she does not get anything — no help with next of kin, no help with ownership of property and no help with anything else. The Labour Party can posture and grandstand and try to pretend to the gay and lesbian community that this Bill is the answer to its problems, but it is not. It is badly thought out, lazy and inadequate. What I am doing and what I have consistently tried to do in my Department is to produce good quality legislation which advances matters. That is what I am doing.

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