Mary Henry (Independent)

It carefully teased out much of what is in the Bill. While we support Senator Norris's proposition some of us have concerns such as those raised by Senator Quinn. Section 6 is very difficult. It provides that heterosexual relationships will be the same as marriage. They will have the same rights but not the duties as was pointed out. I, probably more than any one in the House, have had experience of working with people who simply will not get married, even though I thought it was the best thing for them to do. For 35 years I worked in the Rotunda Hospital and even though it was not my job or my duty to have anything to do with advising people on their private life I could see that at times people were getting into fairly serious legal difficulties as time went on. I worked there over a period when the rate of birth of non-marital children went from 3% to 30%. This did not mean that their parents were not in stable relationships. The vast majority, 90%, were in stable relationships. I do not know if they are more likely to get involved in a civil partnership than in marriage from the various reasons they gave me as to why they were not getting married. They never got around to it. They were saving for the wedding. They were saving for the house. They were saving until the third child was born because they did not want the first two to be discriminated against because they would be married when the third was born. I have heard the most amazing explanations, all very worthy, but I am not convinced that these people would be more likely to become involved in a civil partnership. It is a private decision that people make. Sometimes I wonder if it is due to the fact that we delayed introducing divorce for so long that it became perfectly obvious that it was acceptable to have non-marital relationships and there would be no problems. Now we have a situation where all of us who could have done something about bringing in divorce much earlier face this confusion. Those who are most affected are same sex couples. I salute my friends Dr. Katherine Zappone and Dr. Ann Louise Gilligan who are in the Visitors Gallery on their courage in bringing forward their case——