Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

In effect, that means that no church can be forced to have a ceremony on its sacred ground, its church property, which is used for religious purposes. The only way a church could be used is if the church applied to be registered and applied for approval by the HSE under the legislation. Anybody who suggests that gay couples will now take churches to court for the use of the church is a complete nonsense. That is not included in the legislation. It is stated in black and white in the legislation that that can be done only at the instigation of the church if a place is to be used for a civil ceremony by a gay couple.

If there is other property owned by the church and it rents it out for commercial purposes, it could be forced to allow that property to be used. That is not provided for under this legislation but in legislation passed ten years ago, the Equal Status Act 2000. If a church rents out its property, it is not entitled to discriminate. That are nine protected statuses in earlier legislation, one of which is sex, religion etc.

We need to deal with what is in the legislation and not with what is not in it. To return to the central point of the amendments, I accept the point made by Deputy Flanagan now and by Deputy Howlin on Committee Stage that the Title of the Bill does not reflect the fact that there are two distinct issues involved, and we have amended that accordingly.

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