Rónán Mullen (Independent)

We need to take a closer look at the issues raised in the amendments. Amendment No. 5 proposes that "the surviving partner shall be regarded in law as a guardian of the child" in a case in which the deceased partner was the adopting parent. Amendment No. 37 is similar. It seems we are getting very close to the boundaries of the Constitution. I recall my earlier comment that, although we are right to seek to affirm and vindicate the rights, welfare, dignity and best interests of children, we must not do so in a way that will have the result of relativising the context in which we would like children to be brought up. That seems to be a recurrent problem in this debate. I hear constant appeals to the rights and best interests of children, but they often seem to be linked with seeking a particular status for an adult relationship. I have a problem with this. I do not question the motivations or bona fides of those who make this argument, but I point to the downsides of that political approach. That is why I commend the wisdom of the Minister on this issue in keeping the issue of children separate from the issue of civil partnership. In this context it must be said we want to vindicate the rights of children in a way that does not undermine the marital family as the socially preferred context. We should not regard that as an anachronistic constitutional inheritance we have not yet shaken off. It is worth pointing out that social science studies consistently show that family form is not an accidental feature of relationship quality. In the context of married and cohabiting couples, for example, the millennium cohort study of 2008 stressed the right of children to be brought up by their biological parents and was able to show evidence that where parents were living together at nine months, the question of the family form involved had a material impact on the child experiencing family change. Children living with married natural parents at nine months were much less likely to have experienced family change than children living with cohabiting natural parents or with a lone natural mother. The figure was one in ten in the context of married parents who experienced family change within the next five years or first five years of the child's life. It was one in four for cohabiting parents and one in three in the context of lone parents. That is just one example, admittedly from an area examining marriage and cohabitation. Miss Justice Elizabeth Dunne considered the evidence in her decision in the Zappone-Gilligan case and expressed concerns about arguments being made that sought to relativise where the best interests of children lay in the context of same-sex parenting vis-À-vis married parenting. We cannot ignore those issues as we consider these amendments and for that reason I oppose them.