Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, and I thank him for staying the course with us, as he is with this important legislation. I am very proud of the Bill and I am very pleased to be associated with it. I listened to the Minister from my office because I was preparing to speak on it. I heard him state it is ground-breaking legislation and he thanked the Attorney General and his officials. I also thank the Attorney General, the Minister and his officials because it is a very carefully framed Bill, of which we as a people can be truly proud. Those of us from all parties and none who fall under the banner of true republicans can be proud of it.

In his speech, the Minister mentioned that our party in its manifesto in 2007 thought it important enough to include our commitment to this Bill if we were to return to Government. We thought it important to have a legal framework to support the rights of same-sex couples. I fought and canvassed for my party and my colleagues who ran for the Dáil on the basis of what was in our manifesto. I subsequently took to the roads and asked my electorate on the basis of what was in the manifesto - at that stage together with what was in the programme for Government agreed with our partners in Government, the Green Party - to give me a mandate to return to the Seanad and ensure this vital Bill was put through. I am proud to play my part in that today.

Once I knew it was to be introduced I wanted to be on the list of speakers because it is ground-breaking. The Minister will go down in the history of the State as the reforming Minister he is. I have known the Minister for a long time and I respect his views and his values. Quite often they conflict with mine but that does not get in the way of a friendship and the good working relationship I enjoy with him. I was sad to hear an Independent Senator having a little go at him. He used a horrible phrase; he said the Minister was "got at". I shouted at the radio, as I do quite often when I am on my own-----