Katherine Zappone (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will note one or two of them if that is okay. Maintenance payments made to a former civil partner for the support of a child after a separation will not be treated as income and therefore will not be subject to tax. That is a very good thing. It is one of the big changes. The second change amends the Taxes Consolidation Act to ensure that in a break-up situation, the transfer of property between civil partners under a deed of separation will no longer be subject to capital gains tax. The same thing applies to married couples under a deed of separation. The third change amends the Capital Acquisitions Tax Consolidation Act 2003, under which there is a tax benefit when assets are moved between people who are related to each other. The 2003 Act sets out what types of relationships can avail of these benefits. The amendments being made in this legislation will ensure that the civil partner of a person's child will be included for these purposes. If a person wishes to gift assets to the civil partner of his or her child, the civil partner would receive the gift at a more favourable rate as a result of this measure. This is currently the case for the spouse of a child. When all of these changes kick in, they will enable parity of treatment between civil partners and married couples. I welcome the changes being made in this Bill, which constitute a major achievement on the part of the Government.

When I first raised these issues a couple of years ago, I expressed concern that the children of civil partners were not receiving tax treatment equivalent to that received by the children of married couples. The civil partnership Act does not recognise a legal relationship between a civil partner who is a parent and the non-biological child he or she is raising. The Act does not extend to civil partners and their children the same legal rights or responsibilities that are automatically accorded to married couples. It is interesting to note that the Finance Act 2012 and the proposed Finance Bill both acknowledge the relationship between a non-biological child and the parent who is raising him or her by providing for parity of tax treatment between such a child and the child of a married couple. The Revenue Commissioners have indicated, in effect, that the tax treatment of the children of civil partners should in all circumstances reflect the treatment of the children, stepchildren and adopted children of spouses. I welcome this progressive development.

On the issue of constitutionality, given we had to work within the parameters of constitutionality in terms of these changes, we do not yet know if marriage equality is prohibited under our Constitution as the Supreme Court has not yet interpreted on this question. It may be the case that marriage equality could be provided for by the introduction of legislation, and I note that a Bill recently launched by Senator Bacik would certainly help this process. In a matter of weeks, as the Minister of State knows, the Constitutional Convention will examine and vote on the question of marriage equality. For the moment, we do not currently have parity between opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples in our laws, although I know that one day we will. In the meantime, nearly 1,000 couples have entered into civil partnership since it was introduced in 2011. These changes will have a very real impact on the day-to-day lives of these couples and their families, for which I am very grateful.