David Norris (Independent)

I would like an update on the progress of the Civil Partnership Bill. It is in the process of being amended and there have been worrying reports in the newspapers about amendments that apparently have been accepted by Cabinet, as a result of which the creation of a joint tenancy on behalf of civil partners would be exempt from court fees and property registration fees but not stamp duty. I have received correspondence on what this means and will describe one particular case. A couple, two men, have been together for 11 years and their property is now worth €1 million. Stamp duty of 7%, or €70,000, would have to be paid if the partners were to register the house as a joint tenancy. Ten years ago I raised a similar issue about a couple living in west Cork, where one of them had died and the other had been charged €250,000 for the privilege of living in the house in which he had been born. That is a disgrace. What is the Government at in mucking around? As a result of its cack-handedness, people will be worse off after the publication and passage of the Bill. In other words, discrimination will increase. The very angry person in the case I described wrote to state he did not give a crap about getting married in a church and did not want to adopt babies. He wants the State which he describes as a joke of a republic to treat him and his partner fairly in terms of tax payments and civil rights and wonders what the Government is thinking about. Will the Leader take this message back?

A number of new jobs, up to 20 in the coming years, will be created by a Wicklow firm, profitsflow.com, supported by Wicklow County Enterprise Board. With the advent of cloud computing, it makes it a reality for small and medium-sized business throughout Ireland to have access to mobile computing, which is very good. The company has a reseller in the United Kingdom and is about to appoint one in the United States. This is very important because the company has been established by two young people in the high-tech industry who have shown one can go against the flow and create employment, even in very difficult circumstances.