Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the Bill. To put it bluntly, people have not been knocking down my door asking for this Bill to be introduced. However, I accept that there is a group that wanted this legislation and, in that context, I accept that the Bill will be passed by the House. The issue is how we deal with it as it goes through the system and whether necessary amendments are made to make it more acceptable and workable. I have received a great deal of correspondence on this issue, both very nice personal letters and e-mails. One e-mail might be asking when this will happen and saying it cannot happen soon enough, while the next might say it should not happen at all. Another might raise questions about the legislation and how it can be amended. That demonstrates the difficulties there are with the Bill.

On a personal basis, I support the Constitution. It recognises the family as the natural primary and fundamental unit of society and as a moral institution, and states that the State guarantees to protect the family as the necessary basis of social order and as indispensable to the welfare of the nation and the State. That is extremely important. However, times have changed and it is obvious that the Bill will be passed to provide for legal civil unions of gay and lesbian couples. This will clarify their situation with regard to inheritance and so forth. I understand the reasons for that and am aware of the serious situations in which some people might find themselves after years of being together. Under current law they do not have the right to decide what should or should not happen if the partner is in hospital or in some other situation. Those are the reasons for this Bill.

However, why does the Bill not go further, given that we are legislating for same-sex couples to be dealt with in this way? There are many brothers and brothers, brothers and sisters and sisters and sisters living together, especially in rural areas, with property in common. While I appreciate that their home is dealt with in legislation, the amount of property the brother or sister can inherit from their sibling is approximately €41,410. It was actually reduced in the last budget. It is strange that two strangers who come together through love or whatever and who remain together for three years or more will now be in a position legally to inherit everything, whereas others who have lived together for 30 or 40 years are not. As somebody who lives in rural Ireland, I come across that a lot and it is a major problem. It can mean the wealth of a family can disappear or will not exist to hand on to somebody else.

The other issue which has been already referred to by my colleague, Deputy Creighton, and to which I wish to again refer is section 23. I fully understand some of the logic behind it but the reality is a different story. It is difficult for me to understand why somebody should be fined or sent to prison because he or she is not prepared to deal with this, when in any other part of the Civil Service an alternative would be found. There has to be a provision for freedom of conscience in this Bill. People have said this is not a church matter; it is a civil matter. Surely, in civil structures people are entitled to have freedom of conscience. If they do not want to perform particular duties and they make that clear in a nice way, there is no reason other people cannot be found to do it.

I am aware of a case involving a county solicitor who did not want to get involved in a case for obvious reasons and the next county provided the personnel to facilitate the case. There are practical ways in which this can be done without getting all tied up in knots and making it unacceptable. This issue was not raised by Catholics alone. It has been raised by people of all denominations, including Baptists, Reformed Presbyterians and different groups, who are genuinely worried about the situation and cannot understand why we cannot allow a level of freedom in this area. I understand it was discussed at other party meetings, apart from ours, and that there were suggestions that an amendment would be tabled. I urge the Minister to examine the issue and every effort be made to ensure this Bill, which will never be acceptable to all, creates less problems than it does in its current form.

If the Bill is amended, it will be acceptable to many more people. If it is not amended, for the first time in the history of the State Christians will be in a vulnerable position whereby they can be prosecuted for acting on their beliefs in traditional marriages in a way deemed discriminatory towards gay couples. That is the view of many individuals who have written and spoken to me about this issue. I urge the Minister to deal with that matter. The rights of others who are living together should be examined in the context of inheritance. We have moved down the road from the marriage structure to this point.

In our jobs as politicians we come across some very strange situations. This Bill will resolve some of them. Recently I met a women who had lost her husband - as I was told - some weeks earlier and who wanted to know her rights. A private conversation, however, revealed that a marriage had not taken place. In the good old days the couple lived together in the United Kingdom or somewhere else, had a family together and moved back to Ireland, but they did not get married. In that context, the woman concerned had no rights. Her partner paid a full contributory pension but when I contacted the social welfare authorities, they did not want to know. It is important that such matters be rectified. I understand this Bill will bring about some rationale in that regard. Another case concerned a young couple with four children who had returned from England. The man was killed in a tragic accident. They had never been married and the widow, to all intents and purposes, had no rights. As a State we need to recognise these situations and try to bring some logic to them.

While some people tell us we should do nothing, we have to move forward and accept situations as they are today. However, we should not discriminate against others who should have freedom of conscience. I urge the Minister to deal with section 23 as it is a very important issue which will alleviate concerns, not just for me and some of my colleagues on this side of the House but, I understand, for many of the Government backbenchers.

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