Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

All of us who are Members of Parliament come here and work every day on behalf of the people. On occasion we forget this is the Parliament of the Irish republic and this evening has been very important. We have made history. We have debated a very important issue. We have had contributions from every party in the House and contributions from Independent Deputies. We have unitedly agreed there is a need for constitutional change in this area. We have unitedly agreed we should hold a referendum. This is something we should celebrate, but we should not assume automatically the referendum will be successful. One of the reasons the Government took the decision that a referendum would not be held until 2015 was to ensure the nature of the referendum to be held is not misrepresented and to ensure there is absolute clarity in the minds of those of our people who come out to vote as to what it is they are voting about.

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