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

I appreciate that this is not a big deal and the sum involved is very small. However, it would be an appropriate and right gesture for the State to make in the circumstances of the enactment of the legislation. It would recognise the fact that everybody should be treated equally. If nothing else, it is symbolic, saying to a couple which has entered into civil partnership that they will not be charged something extra over and above what a heterosexual couple in a registry office may have had to pay in the past few years to have the formal status of marriage attached to the relationship.

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