Dáil debates

Thursday, 1 July 2010

Civil Partnership Bill 2010: Report and Final Stages

 

5:00 pm

Photo of Dermot AhernDermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

The Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Deputy Ciarán Cuffe, said the Bill does not go far enough. The Bill is a fine balance, as is required by the Constitution, between the constitutional provisions that people be equal in the eyes of the law and that marriage be protected. Without a referendum, we must frame our law to meet the fine balance between those two, supposedly, contrasting provisions. This is a fine balance.

We have taken detailed legal advice from the Attorney General on every provision in the Bill in order to ensure that it will pass constitutional muster. There may be people who will say it does not go far enough and others who will say it goes too far. A commitment was made by my party in our manifesto before the last general election, confirmed in the programme for Government with the Green Party and the Progressive Democrats and further confirmed in the review of the programme for Government a year ago.

Deputy Crawford referred to freedom of conscience. There seems to be confusion on his side of the House. His spokesperson did not put down an amendment asking for freedom of conscience to be included in the Bill. I have already made the position clear on behalf of the Government. It is not possible from a policy point of view nor, it must be said, from a practical point of view to allow a situation whereby a civil servant mandated by the Oireachtas to implement law can adopt an Àla carte approach, depending on his or her view of this legislation, or the religious view he or she might have in regard to a situation. This is especially the case in the State we now have, which is multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious.

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