Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I wish to raise a second matter. Yesterday a High Court judge, dealing with a case involving the custody of the child of a lesbian couple and a biological father, criticised legislators for not having introduced legislation to deal with the rights of same sex couples. He said that such legislation was urgent. In March 2007, the Labour Party introduced a Bill to legislate for civil unions for same sex couples. The Government at the time used a procedural device to postpone the Second Stage. We introduced a motion in October to restore that Bill to the Order Paper and at that stage the Government told us that the heads of a Government Bill would be published by the end of March 2008. To date, we have not had the heads of that Bill, nor do we have a date for its publication. When does the Government intend to publish the heads of the Bill and when will the Bill itself be before the House?

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