Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

Declarations as regards civil partnership status will rarely be required. If, after the passage of this Bill, a person enters a civil partnership here, he or she will always be entitled to be treated as a civil partner for the purposes of Irish law, unless and until the civil partnership is dissolved. Likewise, if a person has entered a civil partnership or equivalent registered partnership elsewhere and both of the couple are alive on the date that the relevant order recognising that relationship comes into effect, he or she will always be entitled to be treated as a civil partner for the purposes of Irish law, again unless and until that civil partnership is dissolved. This includes for all relevant rights and obligations which accrue under civil partnership, including succession, pensions, shared home protection and so forth.

The circumstances in which a declaration as to the status may be required are, for example, where a relationship entered into in another state was dissolved and there is a question as to the validity of the dissolution, whether it took place in the same state or another, or perhaps where a civil partnership entered into in this jurisdiction was purported to be dissolved in another jurisdiction after the couple concerned had moved their permanent domicile elsewhere. This may have implications for whether the civil partner is free to enter a new civil partnership or whether the person has certain succession rights and so forth.

In a case where the relevant person does not have a direct or continuing connection with the State, it is not appropriate to confer jurisdiction on our courts to deal with such matters. However, domicile gives extensive jurisdiction to our courts because it is not easy to lose domicile in this State. In 2003, the Supreme Court judgment in F.L. v. D.T. related to a foreign divorce of a married couple who had emigrated to the Netherlands in 1988. The court concurred with the prior finding of the High Court that the couple's Dutch divorce obtained in 1994 was not recognised in Ireland on the basis that the husband's domicile was still in Ireland. In the judgment in question, Chief Justice Keane remarked: "Evidence as to a form of residence in a foreign country so dependant on the particular personal circumstances of the person alleged to have abandoned a domicile of origin is very far removed from the evidence of a fixed intention to make one's permanent home in a foreign country, which the authorities stipulate as the essential precondition to a finding that a domicile of origin has been abandoned and a domicile of choice acquired." As I indicated, it is very difficult to lose a domicile of origin.

The jurisdiction we have conferred on our courts is directly comparable with the jurisdiction in relation to marital status. This is based on clear, well-understood and applied principles of jurisdiction in private international law. I do not see any case for deviating from that settled policy. This is exactly what pertains in regard to the manner in which we deal with foreign divorces.