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

Deputy McNamara is raising a very important issue, as he often does. We rarely get an opportunity to discuss the issue he has raised in this House. Just as weddings are happy occasions, the enactment of this legislation will be a very happy occasion. I wish to use Deputy McNamara's amendment to tease out a particular issue, which I have found to be a source of personal irritation for many years. I know many people who have sought to marry have found it to be a cause of irritation too. It has been mentioned by Deputies McNamara and Buttimer. Many years ago, when the civil registry office was effectively located in a solicitors' firm in Kildare Street, civil marriages in Dublin were celebrated there by a Mr. Downey with great solemnity and aplomb. All of this was subsequently taken over, in effect, by the former Eastern Health Board.

I do not understand why this bureaucratic administrative requirement is not being questioned. It seems it will always be done in this way because it has always been done in this way. I think it is right that we should question why a civil marriage should have to be celebrated between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. from Monday to Friday., simply because they are the work hours of the officials who are employed by the State or a State agency. I understand that no one wants to pay them overtime for working outside their working hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday. Has anyone ever suggested that they might work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Tuesday to Saturday? Maybe some of them would welcome that and there would be no extra charge to the State. There are many people who would like to celebrate their wedding on a Saturday or a Sunday. Getting married is a very special occasion.

Most people who are getting married, or whose friends are getting married, do not object to taking a day off work, but it presents as a difficulty for some people. It can present as a difficulty for people who are flying in from abroad for weddings. Many people, particularly those who are having civil marriage ceremonies, would like to marry on a Saturday or a Sunday. The only group through which that can be done at the moment is the Humanist Association of Ireland. It is fantastic that the humanists can celebrate ceremonies. I understand they are now celebrating wedding ceremonies for large numbers of people who are not members of the Humanist Association of Ireland.

This does not fall within the Minister's remit, but it is relevant to the discussion and the amendment. I cannot for the life of me see why we are so structured and inflexible. It is just assumed that one can never celebrate a marriage ceremony earlier than 9 a.m. on a Monday or later than 5 p.m. on a Friday, and not at all on a Saturday or Sunday unless it is a religiously celebrated ceremony or the Humanist Association of Ireland has a vacancy and is able to celebrate one's ceremony. That may be months away because of the demand being experienced by the humanists.

This is an administrative issue. It is not about legislation. It is simply about whether we can rearrange the bureaucracy. It may well be that those who are currently celebrating marriages would be delighted to do this. Maybe they would have no difficulty at all with it. For all sorts of domestic reasons, it might suit them to work on a Saturday and not on a Monday. I have no idea. I simply do not know. It should not be beyond the realms of human ingenuity at Government or HSE level to ensure we have a more flexible arrangement. It may well be that a few more officials could be trained to celebrate marriage ceremonies. Maybe some people would be very happy to do this at the weekend, or early in the morning. It may not be an enormous financial imposition on the State.

We all visit myriad of countries outside this State. I have not done a survey of how many European countries, or countries beyond the EU, allow one to celebrate one's civil ceremony on a Saturday or a Sunday, but I would be aware that the number is quite considerable. We are in some sort of marital celebratory ceremony straitjacket that has been bestowed on us by an administrative bureaucracy that nobody questions. I sometimes get into trouble for asking questions, but this is not a question of great complexity. Why should we continue to do this in the way we have been doing it?

I believe the public would welcome the availability of civil registrars who would celebrate marriages on Saturdays and Sundays and after 5 p.m. during the summer months. Why does it stop at 5 p.m. during the summer months? I do not know the answer to that question. Why should a marriage not be celebrated at 7 p.m. on a Friday evening during the summer at some venue where people would like to celebrate it? This would enable guests attending the ceremony to work the day if they so wished. Why are we in this sort of odd bureaucratic straitjacket? It makes no sense.

This is of relevance to heterosexual couples, gay couples and all people who are going to marry in the future. Perhaps the Minister could have this conversation with her colleague in government who is responsible for this matter. Maybe there could be some dramatic and simple change that would affect this area and bring us out of the sort of strange straitjacket that we have been in since the 19th or 20th centuries and into a more flexible 21st century model.

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