Seanad debates

Thursday, 26 March 2015

Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of David NorrisDavid Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am just coming to that, before I was so unhelpfully interrupted. It is amendment No. 27. This amendment is supposed to be an alternative.However, everything is confined in amendment No. 26 to legally married people. When one turns to amendment No. 27, they have suddenly had an access of liberalism because they are expanding it and now - goody, goody - it states, "A person shall not perform a DAHR procedure other than on the request of intending parents who are legally married to one another or in a civil partnership [Hooray] with one another or in a cohabiting relationship...". What happened to all these principles? Where did all the principles disappear to in the space of less than one page? Principle has evaporated completely. I just do not understand it. This is an attempt to frustrate the Bill's passage.

Senator Mullen is perfectly right. This is a cleaning up exercise because people like him and the Iona Institute have deliberately confused the issue and introduced parenting, adoption and so on into the equality legislation. The equality referendum is about equality and the passage of this legislation will make that is absolutely abundantly clear. That is why this half baked, confused, muddled, unprincipled series of amendments has been tabled and I am against every single bloody one of them. I regret that Senator Mullen was not present to hear my words.

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