Hildegarde Naughton (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. We live in a time when, for various cultural and economic reasons, we can no longer think of traditional marriage when we discuss the family. The traditional stereotype of mum, dad and two kids is just that - a stereotype. Until the introduction of the Status of Children Act 1987, the concept of bastardry and illegitimacy was alive and well in our system. Eighteen so-called fallen women remained in the Magdalen laundry in Galway until it closed in 1984, within the living memory of Members of this House. Since the foundation of the State, brutality was meted out to men and women in religious and other institutions by a society that saw some people as lesser individuals due to what were considered their lax morals. In fact, the people in question refused to conform to the stifling and brutal moral certainty of the time. This dictatorship of the majority was hugely wounding to society. We should have learned by now that there are no certainties and no absolutes. People are different and should be respected in their difference. They should be seen as second-class citizens with lesser rights than those who conform to the majority.

According to the State's special rapporteur on child protection, Dr. Geoffrey Shannon, almost all the proposals contained in the draft Bill are progressive. Given that there has been no more than piecemeal reform to the law on the family outside marriage since the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964, this consolidated approach is to be welcomed and should considerably improve the position of the family outside marriage. Until the enactment of the Status of Children Act 1987, children born in this country to unmarried parents were considered illegitimate. The 1987 Act abolished the concept of illegitimacy. A seismic change has occurred in Irish society, in terms of the structure of the modern family, in just over 25 years. This Bill is a welcome step to ensure the law keeps pace with the status of the modern family and the myriad legal issues associated with it.

Objections to this Bill seem to be based on the suggestion that the State is seeking to promote an unstable form of family. Nothing could be further from the truth. The State is seeking to give legal certainty to actual families that are living in this country but have no support and are discriminated against. The State is making families more stable. It cannot close its eyes to the actuality of family life in 2015 and beyond. A subliminal message of disapproval of other lifestyles, on the part of those who seem to think everyone should have the same form of family unit, can be noted throughout the objections to this legislation. These people seem to think the State should not support those who do not have the same type of family unit and definitely should not try to make their lives easier or happier. The State's simple message is that it cannot and will not disapprove of, and certainly will not discriminate against, our fellow citizens just because they do not conform to what others believe.

Much of the commentary on this legislation has related to question of same-sex adoption. I concur with my colleagues who have said that the provisions addressing this question form a very small part of the Bill. Many other important elements of it relate to questions like father's rights, the ability of relations acting in loco parentisto gain legal protections, etc. As the issue of same-sex adoption has unfortunately gained the most traction, I would like to deal with it here. The reality is that single people who are gay or straight have been lawfully able to adopt in this jurisdiction for decades and have done so. The opposition to the provision in this Bill allowing gay couples to adopt makes very little practical sense. I say this for a number of reasons. Principally, I would ask whether people objected to single gay people being able to adopt here for many years. Why is there opposition to two gay people in a stable relationship being able to adopt, when there was no opposition to one of them being able to do so? Are those who advocate for stable families seriously suggesting it is better for a child to be brought up by one person than by two people in a stable relationship who are able to share the task? It seems to be less preferable for two people to love and care for children than for one of those people to do so, if the people in question are gay.

We need to make it clear that not one properly conducted and peer-reviewed study has indicated that children raised by gay couples are in any way disadvantaged. The Members of this House must proceed on the basis of fact rather than suspicion and fear. The most-often quoted study against gay adoption or marriage is one conducted by Mark Regnerus. I would like to record what the American Sociological Association, which is the foremost association of its type in the world, had to say about that study. During the course of its amicus brief to the US Supreme Court, the association said that "the Regnerus study does not specifically examine children born or adopted into same-sex parent families", but instead examines those who seem to recollect one of their parents ever having a same-sex relationship". Regnerus compared the people in that group, most of whom had experienced family dissolution, to people from stable married opposite-sex families. He ignored whether the children lived with or were raised by the parents who had a same-sex relationship. He identified these gay parents on the basis of the recollection of the children, rather than on the basis of how the parents actually identified or lived their lives. Most of the factors analysed by Regnerus were adult outcomes, rather than childhood outcomes, and could have had nothing to do with the relationships of the children's parents. In the conclusion of its submission to the US Supreme Court, the American Sociological Association argued that "the social science consensus is both conclusive and clear: children fare just as well when they are raised by same-sex parents as when they are raised by opposite-sex parents".Again, we must look at the reality and the lived lives out there. There are hundreds of gay people in this country with children, either biological or adopted. Many are in stable relationships, with their partners acting as de facto parents. At present, if the child or children require any form of parental consent, only one can provide it. Only one can provide a sick note, only one can attend a parent-teacher meeting, and the list goes on. No matter how long the de facto parent has been caring for the child concerned, this is the case. The State has an obligation to provide legal certainty and stability to these families and this Bill does just that.

I would like to raise what seems to be a similar case to that raised by Senator Quinn and which was brought to my attention in recent days. It involves a couple who fostered two baby boys a number of decades ago and were never in a position to adopt them as the birth mother rejected this at every effort. The two boys are now in their late 20s and they would like to be adopted by this couple. However, looking to the future and to their parents growing old, or to the position when they die, they will always be considered as strangers. I believe it is hugely unfair to have all these four citizens in this situation. Perhaps a change is possible in the context of this Bill, and I would ask the Minister to look at what can be done in regard to inheritance and all of the issues that surround this case.

I welcome the legislation. I think it is important that Ireland adapts to our changing society and that we look forward and not back when we consider the family and society and what that is built on.