Dan Boyle (Green Party)

If we were to place this matter in the context of previous debates on social policy, the argument made in the past with regard to whether public officials should co-operate with people and whether people are divorced or cohabiting or whether they hold different religious opinions would again be made, but that is an Ireland which is dead and gone. It is an Ireland we need to leave behind.

It is left to me to make only one further point which I will place in the context of a quote from Shakespeare's play "Hamlet". I ask others to bear it in mind when they put us through the engaging debate in which we are going to partake for the remainder of today and tomorrow. The relevant quotation is, "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all".