Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome the Bill and commend the Minister and her officials on bringing it to the House. Earlier this year, the House discussed the Companies Act, which comes within my brief. This technical legislation was 7,000 pages long, yet it will not have anything like the impact of the small Bill before us, which has received the endorsement of so many Irish people.

As I noted on several occasions during the referendum campaign, referendum campaigns tend to be negative and focused on some type of technical or legal issue related to remote institutions. This referendum, however, was different as it challenged those who supported the proposal to act in a different manner from previous referendums or political campaigns. It challenged many of them to come out to their families and communities and spend time convincing people of the value of the campaign to their lives. It also challenged communities to ask how welcoming and open they were. Most of them answered that question with pride and style last May. The referendum campaign also challenged the political parties to examine the way we do politics. It engaged a cohort of people who had never been engaged in an election or vote because it spoke to rather than at them and did not tell them how to behave. People who had never voted previously registered to vote or queued for hours outside Garda stations to have their names added to the supplementary electoral register. This had never happened before. Voters were engaged not only by social media but also by friends, the stories that were told and a sense of fraternity that extended across society. This is the reason there is such a feel-good factor and sense of celebration nationally following the referendum result.

The referendum result is also a tribute to those organisations that started the campaign many years ago in difficult circumstances. It is ironic that the campaign was bookended in terms of this institution copping on to itself by two female Ministers for Justice. The legislation decriminalising homosexuality was introduced by Máire Geoghegan Quinn, while the legislation before us has been introduced by another female Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald. I do not know if this says anything about the approach of the Department but it is a tribute to both women and the work they have done as well as their officials.

The referendum is also a tribute to many other people. It is hard to believe that this achievement was impossible in the early 1990s because homosexuality was still illegal. Individuals such as Senators Norris and Zappone and Deputies Buttimer, Lyons and Hannigan showed great bravery and courage before the day we had last May. The referendum outcome is also a tribute to organisations which sought to persuade people of their case at an early stage. I refer to GLEN, for example, which invested enormous effort in the campaign that brought us to this point.

This is not the end of the campaign for equality. Discrimination continues in employment and the community. We must ensure the funding available to organisations working on these issues is not cut further and they must be able to continue to do their job. Full equality has not been achieved for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, LGBT, people as a result of the vote. A great deal of work remains to be done and it would be foolish to believe otherwise.

Deputy Costello referred to the Proclamation. As we embark on a period of commemoration and events, I cannot imagine anything else that will mark and celebrate the 100th year of the Proclamation better than the outcome of the vote on the marriage equality referendum, which involved hundreds of thousands of citizens endorsing the Proclamation and its guarantee of religious and civil liberty, equal rights and opportunities to all citizens and promise to cherish all of the children of the nation. Last May, almost 100 years after it was printed, citizens voted to make the Proclamation a living document. It lives because of the legislation being discussed today. As I stated, however, we must drive on and continue our efforts.

I remember being in a house during the referendum campaign where a ten year old girl chided her 84 year old grandfather because he planned to vote "No". Watching a ten year old girl who normally has her grandfather wrapped around her little finger argue with him about his reasons for voting "No" and observing him trying to dodge her questions, as many Deputies dodged questions in this House, was one of the images of the campaign. It is one that gave me a little hope for the Republic. The republican ideals expressed in the Proclamation hung in this building and which we purport to celebrate are too often ignored in our daily lives. They will be safe in the hands of those who are coming after us, however, as they will live them. As a previous speaker stated, citizens took the lead on this issue and we must learn from that.

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