Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I congratulate Senator Norris for introducing this Bill. Modern life has changed. The way we think has changed. We need to examine these matters and to tease out many questions we had not thought of before. This debate has been a valuable contribution. I wish many more people could hear it because it has opened my eyes to a whole range of topics, challenges and questions I had not thought of before. I am pleased we are debating this issue. It is a topic we must not avoid. We must listen to different opinions. That is what we are hearing today.

I have one concern, namely, each time we recognise non-marital relationships in some way in law we in some way weaken the whole institution of marriage. I examined this Bill to see whether it passed my test of not weakening the institution of marriage, and that is something we have not considered well enough.

Like the Minister I looked up what the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Diarmuid Martin, said. He stated:

It may, in certain circumstances, be in the public interest to provide legal protection to the social, fiscal and inheritance entitlements of persons who support caring relationships which generate dependency, provided always that these relationships are recognised as being qualitatively different from marriage and that their acceptance does not dilute the uniqueness of marriage.

I fear that section 6 does that. I am not sure but I suggest it might do so because it states that such relationships are equal to marriage.

Senator Dardis has clearly pointed to the fact that if we regard such relationships as equal to marriage we discriminate against married people. That concerns me because in the Constitution and in our way of life we have recognised marriage as something different, something unique and we have placed it on a level. This Bill proposes to place other relationships on exactly the same level, and this is perhaps where Senator Norris and I disagree. It is not enough for marriage to be equal. Marriage must be at a different level and have a different status. If we do not do that we are in danger of damaging, weakening and demeaning it.

I hope we can deal with this issue without getting bogged down in the issue of gay marriage, which is causing such disruption, particularly in America. To many people, both here and in America, to propose gay marriage is an affront to their religious sensibilities. Rather than get involved in that debate which has every likelihood of being indeterminable, we should concentrate on the kernel of the issue, which is the need to provide a legal structure for the rights and obligations of those who enter into non-marital relationships.

Regardless of whether people or married or not, the State has an interest in promoting stable relationships. They are the glue that hold our society together. As soon as we enter this area we immediately run the risk of falling into linguistic traps. I see one such trap in section 3 of the Bill. It has been talked about before. It refers to a civil partnership as a "conjugal relationship". This begs the question. The most commonly accepted meaning of the word "conjugal" incorporates the concept of marriage. I looked the word up in a dictionary. The Latin verb conjugare which is the root of the English word means "to join in marriage". I have a different opinion from Senator Norris because I believe it includes the sexual connotation. A better term needs to be found although I do not feel qualified to offer one. I realise it is necessary to distinguish what we are talking about from relationships that result from family members or friends living together.

Inevitably the question of the Bill's constitutionality will arise. Members will recall that the Constitution review group made a number of recommendations regarding Article 41 in its 1996 report. The group took the view that the concept of the family in Irish society had undergone significant changes since 1937 and recommended that Article 41 should be amended to take this change of attitudes into account. On non-marital relationships, it recommended that although the State's obligation to protect marriage should be retained the revised Article 41 should explicitly state that this should not prevent the Oireachtas from legislating for the benefit of non-marital relationships. We have debated this issue. The Minister clearly made his point.

The argument can and no doubt will be made that this Bill cannot stand until such a constitutional amendment is passed. On the other hand, the Law Reform Commission for its part believes that the law as it stands does allow the Oireachtas to legislate for the non-marital family, provided it does not treat such relationships more favourably — I think that is the term it uses — than the marital family. On that basis this Bill could get through. As usual the lawyers differ and we must see what emerges. I have a difficulty with the words "more favourably". I believe marriage is a different state and on a different level and if we put other relationships on the same level we diminish the status of marriage.

I thank Senator Norris for initiating this debate. It is valuable and has opened my eyes to many questions and challenges I had not thought of previously. It is not over, it will go on. There is a little bit of Latin I love to drop in and it is seldom I have a chance to do so —obesa non iam contava, the fat lady has not sung yet.