David Norris (Independent)

I have just returned from abroad and had not quite anticipated this debate. However, I am glad that it has been put down by my colleagues and I am happy to lend my name to it. I welcome it and I believe it is important that Senator Henry should have approached an area in which I am vitally concerned from a slightly different angle. I would like to say, at the beginning, that I have legislation in preparation which is virtually finished. We are just refining one of the sections at the moment, but this debate provides the opportunity to take some other matters into consideration as well, perhaps, just minor technical things. Lest I forget, I would like to emphasise for the Minister's benefit, that the proposed title is the domestic partnership Bill 2004. It scrupulously avoids the word "marriage". I have always done so. Unfortunately, sometimes newspaper headlines, reporting what I have said, refer to "gay marriage". I have never used that phrase and dislike it as it creates an unnecessary resistance to what is, in my opinion, very much a question of fair play, decency and justice. For that reason, I welcome not only the Minister's remarks, to which I will turn in a few moments if I have the time, but most particularly the eloquent contributions of Senator Henry and Senator Quinn.

Senator Quinn is a deeply committed loyal Catholic. I know he is proud to be a Knight of St. Gregory and understand he is not at all ashamed to be a member of the Knights of St. Columbanus. It is gratifying to hear somebody from that background talk about "the most decent and principled thing", although he is a strong supporter of marriage. So am I. Where did I come from? I did not descend from the trees. I came out of a marriage. My father and mother loved each other. They had a wonderful marriage. Thank God for it and I am grateful the institution was there to provide a happy childhood for me. For Senator Quinn to say, as he did, that the fact that one supports marriage should not be a basis for depriving other people of rights, is absolutely right, as is his contention that people should be led rather than driven into this.

This is where I see a flaw in a previous tradition and a view that is sustained by some aspects of religious life in this country. In the judgment of Mr. Chief Justice O'Higgins, in one of the cases which I took, for example, he maintained that the kind of legislative change we got under the criminal law code would undermine marriage. That was wrong and was simply based on a prejudice. If anybody feels this, he or she should read an important book called Coming Out — Irish Gay Experiences. The most poignant and desperately sad, desolating articles therein are not from the gay people. They are from the women to whom gay men were coerced into marrying. The damage was done to them. When the gay man decided he was able to come out, this was a wonderful bonanza for him, but tragedy for the wife who was trapped in this relationship. We need to be terribly careful about the way in which we think we support marriage. People like myself who believe in long-term committed relationships should not be seen as the enemies of marriage. We should be seen as allies. I am not asserting that all sexual relationships should be regarded in the same way. The relationships in which gay people engage are not the same as marriage. Many of my gay friends have told me they do not want to be described in this way. Sometimes, with a sense of humour, they add that they have seen what it has done to others and do not want it to happen to them. However, they recognise there is a difference.

On the other hand, everyone is entitled to work within his or her own ethical religious context to change the views of the church, to get blessings if necessary. If they can bless a few agricultural implements and goldfish, I do not think it would kill them to bless a few poor old lesbians while they are at it. However, that is entirely up to them.

I have been intellectually strong, although not rude or unfair, in my comments on certain documents emanating from the Vatican and statements coming from the church here. I welcome the tone of Archbishop Brady's comments at the conference on the family. He was right to put at the top of his agenda the fact that the church condemns attacks on gay people and so on. However, I regret that extensive reference was made to a dangerous document emanating from the Vatican, under Cardinal Ratzinger, in which politicians are instructed not to vote positively in this area. That is wrong and I very much hope we will have the velvet glove rather than the steel fist in this debate. I will try to avoid contentious language in order that this may be possible. I trust that the kind of attitude adopted by Senator Quinn will prevail.

The Bill I referred to will be finalised within the next week or two. It will then be professionally scrutinised and I will seek permission to put it before the House. I decided to look at the principle involved in this matter, which as the Minister said does not just extend to gay people. I was glad and absolutely supported him when he said that consideration of these matters should also take communities, such as religious orders, into account. Why not? The State has no right to pry into people's private sexual activity. I was glad when the Minister noted how significant was the change introduced by the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, in a budget in the late 1990s as a result of a debate here in this House.

We were not allowed to amend the budget but made recommendations, one of which came in the light of a case involving a gay couple who had been living together for 30 years in west Cork. The older man was aged 80 while the younger was aged 70. The older man got Parkinson's disease and, as a caring partner, put the house in the name of the younger man, who then got cancer and died, leaving the unfortunate old man who had shown himself, even though ill, to be a caring partner with a bill of €300,000 for living in the house in which he was born. That is the type of unfair situation I want to address and that my Bill will address, if it is permitted. I would like to think that it might come from this House, selfishly because I have worked in the Seanad for a very long time and this would round out my political career, but more importantly because it would give recognition to the Seanad. It is 45 or 50 years since Professor Stanford's Bill providing for humane conditions in abattoirs was passed in this House. It would be useful if, after consultation with the Government, this matter could be resolved through this House.

A social change is happening. Many people are involved in relationships outside marriage; one third of children are born outside marriage and the Bill will seek also to protect them. There has been a 125% increase in the numbers who acknowledge themselves as same sex couples. That figure is significantly underreported because, even today, very few people are prepared to give that kind of intimate information. It could be multiplied by 100. I welcome very much the attitude of all those who have spoken, particularly Senator Quinn and the Minister. There has been a very positive and constructive debate about decent, committed people who want to register their partners so that they can be next of kin at a deathbed, so that they can live openly with someone with whom they have had a relationship even though they are outside the EU, and so that they can inherit property and benefit from pensions. Why should I contribute to pensions just to look after the widows and orphans of my colleagues? Why should someone with whom I have lived for 27 or 30 years not receive something from a fund to which I have contributed?

People like me do not damage marriage. People like Britney Spears, who got married for half an hour in a drunken fit in Las Vegas, damage it. That was a marriage. Should I be asked, simply because it is called marriage, to respect that more than the two men who recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of their love and commitment, surrounded by their families in the Incorporated Law Society premises in Dublin? We need to rely once more on the fairness of the Irish people.

I seek and hope that this House may be able to help the Government in a situation where all parties, except Fianna Fáil, when surveyed at the last election strongly supported this type of legislation, including recognition of domestic partnerships, registration and so on. Fianna Fáil said it was in neutral mode and that it had no policy. I hope that this will go through from this House.