Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When listening to Deputy Lyons speaking in this Chamber today so passionately, it genuinely was humbling to be able to feel and see what he feels. I have only been in this House for a short time but I have never experienced anything like the unity of purpose of all Members of this House and of all parties. Normally, Members squabble and nitpick against one another in this Chamber but the unity of purpose displayed by everybody in this House to make sure the referendum passed and that this Bill will now pass, simply to be able to treat people equally and the same as everybody else, is phenomenal. Not to be patronising but I must say "bravo" to absolutely everybody who was involved, everybody who canvassed, dropped leaflets or went on buses. I come from a highly political family, as probably does everyone present, and I have been canvassing and campaigning since I was barely out of nappies. I was brought to Ard-Fheiseanna in my communion frock, was on European buses with Richie Ryan and have done it all. However, I have never experienced a campaign like this. It was just incredible and brought raw guttural feelings of everybody, mostly positive, to the surface. As Deputy Lyons noted, it was something I had never seen in Ireland before and it probably will be a long time before we get to it again and therein lies the pity. However, this is not to take away from how it is a huge achievement and accomplishment on the part of the people to finally be able to state we value people for who they are, not what they are. That was a wonderful achievement by the people.

Not to be negative but one thing that genuinely irked me during the campaign was those people, who obviously were pessimistic and opposed to the proposition, who noted that civil partnership was in existence and asked for what was anything different needed, because it already was there and effectively was the same. The stunning changes to the various items of previously-enacted legislation that must now be made simply clarify the fact of those differences. There probably have been hundreds of them between it and civil partnership, which I acknowledge was a great start, but which never was going to be enough and certainly was not the end game. I refer to the amount of legislation that must be changed, from changing words like "wife" to "spouse", up to the serious changes that must be made to the guardianship Act and the Gender Recognition Act. There is myriad of them. It is a major credit to everybody in this House, to all our families, friends and supporters, as well as to the mass of Irish people that we have taken this step in 2015. I am exceptionally proud to have been part of it.

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