Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to pick up on a point made by Senator Rónán Mullen who referred to the Child Trends research. That research was considered by the Constitutional Convention. The author of that research wrote to the chairman of the convention and said his own research could not be used to imply that children reared by same-sex parents do less well than those raised by heterosexual parents. That is not my opinion. That is the opinion of the author of the research. Let us be clear. The convention also looked at this issue and considered other research and heard expert opinion on it and the established view is that the most important thing from a child's point of view is that he or she is brought up in a loving, supportive, low-conflict and stable environment. It is far better from a child's point of view to be brought up by a committed, loving same-sex couple than a family headed by two heterosexual parents in a high-conflict environment. The most important issue is the quality-----