Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 7, to delete lines 20 to 26 and substitute the following:"Review of operation of Act

7. The Minister shall not later than 1 year after this section comes into operation, commence a review of the operation of this Act, and commence a subsequent review not later than 5 years after that date, assessing, in particular, its consistency with international best practice in the field of gender recognition and its compliance with national, regional and international equality and human rights standards, and shall make a report to each House of the Oireachtas of his or her findings and conclusions resulting from the review drawn from the findings not later than 12 months after completion of both reviews.".

This amendment proposes a review of the operation of the Act. The Minister of State has suggested two years as being appropriate and he has made some commitments. Questions have been raised in the last batch of amendments, along with those we are not likely to reach at this stage because of the guillotine at 2.30 p.m. That means we will not be able to tease out all the questions. In some ways, we have already had the arguments but they needed to happen. If we set the period to one year, it will mean that as soon as the Bill passes, we will begin preparing for a review.

Following the referendum on marriage equality, which must be endorsed by the courts, we will see new legislation before the Houses on marriage equality. That will have implications for the Bill before us, which will have been passed into law at that stage. There is a major piece of work to be done in that regard, and we would all love to see it being done. The Minister of State has indicated that the requirement for married people to divorce needs to go but I will not go into that. If the amendment is accepted, we know we can start a review in a year. There will be a new Government this time next year, no matter what I or those opposite do in the mean time. Since we know there will be an election and a new Government, this would force it to act very quickly rather than in two years, which the Minister of State proposes.

The second part of the amendment provides for a five-year review. As the Minister of State indicated in the first contribution, much is happening not only in Ireland but right across the world. I have mentioned Denmark as an example of how things are moving quickly. We need to ensure that we will not just have a review in two years. We hope the next Government will be enlightened and address the shortfalls that will become apparent, and we have already identified some of them. In five years or ten years, others may become evident. I am just trying to ensure this will not just be a once-off review, with the legislation put on the shelf forever.

We are discussing a small group in society and I am thankful they have been blessed by very good advocates able to explain to those of us who were not fully au faitover the years the difficulties faced by children, in particular, and adults. They have been able to get across to us, as legislators, the importance of addressing this issue through a human rights approach to law. I want to ensure we can have a quick review and a follow-up one to capture some of the changes in our society. I hope it can deal with the positive changes at least.

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