Katherine Zappone (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State back to the House and thank him for meeting with some trans people and Senators since. I have spoken about this particular issue, which these amendments cover, for the past several years. It was one of the first issues I spoke about with the excellent civil servants in the Minister of State's Department. I also gave evidence to the committee on social protection and spoke on Second Stage on this issue. I understand the State’s view on this but mine has not changed.

I am not going to use my words this time but those of the trans community, many of whom are again here in the Visitors Gallery, including Victoria Mullen who has spoken eloquently on this aspect of the Bill in the media and in other settings. When we held a civic forum on gender recognition the week before the Bill started in the Seanad, one of the areas we covered was the implication of the single criteria, the forced divorce as it is called. The report of the forum states:

The single criteria, forced divorce, disrespects valid marriages and forces those of us who are married to choose between our family and our right to legal recognition. Ireland’s draconian divorce laws, which require four years living apart, will cause a significant delay in accessing legal recognition. The legal costs of attaining a divorce are prohibitive. Couples that are happily married do not qualify for divorce as we have an amicable relationship. In these cases, the court will not award a divorce and, therefore, the trans spouse will be unable to avail of gender recognition. [This is a key aspect of this issue].

The exclusion of married and civilly partnered trans people will have a detrimental impact. For example there will be an intolerable burden on our families which have not been placed upon any other Irish families. We will experience stress and anguish as we are forced to make an impossible decision between breaking up our families or having the legal right to be recognised. This will seriously disadvantage and hurt our children and spouses both emotionally and financially. [They have gone through so much already]. Those of us that cannot fulfil the single criteria for legal gender recognition will be excluded. This may also mean the roll back of our other documentation, e.g. driver’s license, which could have devastating effects on us.

I will leave it at that.