Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his response, which has been helpful. I agree that the text in the Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (The Family) Bill 2023 is a vast improvement on the current text in Article 41, in that it enables the recognition of family units beyond those based on marriage. We have all acknowledged that. Cohabitees and single-parent families will be recognised for the first time and that is hugely welcome. The Minister referred to the recommendations in the citizens' assembly report and the gender equality committee's report as being more expansive that just the constitutional changes recommended.

As others have said, we published a full report on the 45 recommendations of the citizens' assembly which was, in our view, a blueprint for achieving equality. We called our report Unfinished Democracy because we need to ensure protections beyond those currently provided for in law and the Constitution to achieve equality.

Other legislative change is required beyond this constitutional change. We have a Labour Party Bill down for next week, the Children and Family Relationships (Amendment) Bill, which seeks to provide for a stronger recognition for the children of same-sex couples who are not currently covered in existing child and family relationships legislation. We hope we will have support from Government for that.

I recently attended the launch of the Cherish archive and was struck by the immense stigma and shame that surrounded cohabiting couples and children born outside of marriage for far too long. We have all acknowledged that and it is time our Constitution reflected a change in our society.

Since we are sharing experiences, I was a happy cohabitee for many years before finally taking the plunge to get married. Our family unit never felt any less of a family for not being based on marriage. It is really important that we recognise that. It is now mainstream for people to have children in all sorts of different settings and relationships, and it is important that we recognise families in that way.

We are debating how we get to that point. I thank the Minister for his answer on why he is putting forward an amendment to Article 41.1. I note he wants to do this in an affirmative way and not just the more straightforward or simple deletion that we have proposed. Our deletion approach would de-link the definition of family from marriage; I think that is clear. In our view, it would enable a more expansive definition of family in an affirmative way. The concern might be that reinserting a qualifying provision on family would be more restrictive than a simple deletion.

The Minister described the phrase "whether based on marriage or on other durable relationships" as a guardrail. Perhaps it might be interpreted in a more restrictive way. As somebody said to me, they will not be able to know if they are in a family because it will depend on the court's definition of "durable relationship". I seek further clarity. The Minister has pointed out that in the Government's view the use of the phrase "durable relationship" is not related to the EU definition of durable relationship. What will stop the courts taking a different view and re-coupling it with the EU directive? I want the Minister to clarify the legal basis for this being used in a different setting to the EU directive setting.

In his speech on Second Stage, he pointed out that there are many instances where a different definition is used in EU law than in Irish law. In EU law, a regulation is one of the strongest legal tools but in Irish law a regulation is of less strength than a Bill, an item of primary legislation. Can we be clear that the courts will know this is not to be interpreted in the same way as in an EU setting and just covers horizontal relationships within a couple context?

On Second Stage, Deputy Carroll MacNeill asked why not use the term "enduring" instead of "durable". That would clearly be very different to the EU legal term and would have the same meaning. I am again struck by the quality not quantity approach the Minister mentioned. This is not about duration in terms of time, but rather in terms of strength, intensity and level of commitment. Another Government Deputy – I think it was the Minister of State, Deputy James Browne, used the phrase "committed relationship". The term "enduring" or "committed" could have been used instead of "durable". This is something that will come up in the debates on the referendum. Given that we are here with the same aim, namely, to change the Constitution to ensure that families are recognised beyond families based on marriage and looking back at our long history and so on, we want to make sure that in the debate we can be clear about why the term "durable relationship" is used.

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