Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

It has been suggested there is an administrative difficulty with the amendment. I see no potential difficulty in filling in forms. One should merely have a box to tick indicating whether one is married, divorced, single or in a civil partnership. We have left in the phrases "civil partnership" and "marital status" specifically because we want to retain the phrase "marital status" in the Employment Act, the Equal Status Act, the Pension Act and the Social Welfare Act.

Apart from the signals sent to society, we have a further concern which has engaged me since the middle of 2000 when we had a debate within the parliamentary party.