Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy again. This is a critical issue and I appreciate greatly the Deputy raising it. The Deputy's question about research on the impact on young people reminded me of the first piece of research I had on children expressing what it meant for them to be children of LGBT families but not recognised as such. This was prior to the marriage equality referendum and it was called "The Voices of Children - Report on Initial Research with Children of LGBT Parents", published in 2010 by Marriage Equality, an organisation I helped to found. It is a terrific document still and it describes how children felt at not being acknowledged and recognised as families. Having said that and having consulted with the people to whom the Deputy is also speaking, including those who have written to me and a number of my friends, it may be useful to do some additional research on children's perspectives as the children of LGBT parents and on the impact it has on them. There may be possibilities to do that under the national LGBT strategy, which I am about to launch during the week of Pride.

I appreciate the urgency of this matter and I thank the Deputy again for raising it. It is why I am trying to describe the fact that an announcement will take place soon and that the Department is already preparing regulations to put in place once the legislative issues have been sorted.

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