Brendan Ryan (Labour)

As I said on Second Stage, the extraordinary aspect of this Bill is that the Government managed to turn what should have been good news into a highly political issue. It is matter for political scientists to discover how this was done.

I compliment the Government on the breadth of section 2. The willingness to take into account non-marital, including same-sex, relationships is a brave step. Those of us in the Opposition who sometimes have great fun at the Government's expense ought to acknowledge when it does something right. This is a brave step and it is the correct one. It must have passed unnoticed by some of our moral arbiters or perhaps they felt they could not fire their moral arrows given the group of people they would hurt. It is undoubtedly a step on the way to providing some compensation to those people.

I hope, moreover, it will be a model for reform of our legislation generally to ensure that stable couples, whether of the same or opposite genders, will acquire a body of rights. It is a pity that, in general, the same-sex partner of a person who is seriously ill with an illness like hepatitis C or HIV does not have next of kin status and has no inheritance rights under law. There is no need to refer to "gay marriage"; it is a question of legal recognition for partners in terms of inheritance rights and so on. This Bill is a step in the right direction in this regard and I compliment the Government on that.