Dáil debates

Thursday, 6 April 2017

An Bille um an gCúigiú Leasú is Tríocha ar an mBunreacht (Colscaradh) 2016: An Dara Céim - Thirty-fifth Amendment of the Constitution (Divorce) Bill 2016: Second Stage

 

3:20 pm

Photo of Bríd SmithBríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I echo much of what Deputy Coppinger said. I was active as a socialist in the campaign for divorce. During the divorce referendum, we used posters featuring the face of the late Bishop Eamon Casey with a slogan that bishops should look after their own families. The posters were very popular among those who were advocating in favour of divorce. The referendum was narrowly passed by a margin of 50.28% to 49.72% in November 1995. Thinking back on that campaign, it is interesting to compare it with the recent referendum on same sex marriage. I remember watching the results of the divorce referendum coming in on a television in a Dublin city centre hotel. The areas that delivered radical, progressive change to allow people to control their own lives were not the leafy suburbs of Foxrock or the other place, the name of which I forget, near where Deputy Coppinger lives-----

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