Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 13, to delete lines 14 to 22 and substitute the following:

"(2) This Act shall come into operation on the day that is 3 months after the passing of this Act.".

I will not labour this point as I made it on Committee Stage. I reaffirm my view that having clarity regarding the commencement of the Act is important. We have engaged in the passing of legislation in this House in the past which subsequently gave rise to some confusion. If commencement orders in respect of certain Parts of the Bill are immediately triggered and others take one month or more to be triggered, I am not sure if it is in the best interests of legislation that certain Parts of a Bill come into force at different times. It is preferable that we would have a commencement order to the effect that an Act would come into force on a particular day in its entirety. The Family Law (Divorce) Act, for example, is similar to that which we are debating now. If we had a lead-in time towards a specific date, it would give people an opportunity to become organised and familiar with the terms and conditions, particularly as we felt the need to change the Title of the Bill to include reference to cohabitants.

There is a view that there has not been the type of national publicity campaign that is both appropriate and necessary to ensure citizens and others living in Ireland are familiar with the broad-ranging consequences of the Bill. I am not fixed on a timeframe of three months; if the Minister were to specify that it will be done within four, five, six months or whatever, that would be fine. What is important is that the implementation of this legislation is not done in a piecemeal way. I ask the Minister to take on board my proposal that the Bill come into operation in its entirety on a specified date.

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