David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Will the Leader write to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, to draw his attention to, and ask him to correct, a cruel and unnecessary anomaly in the allocation of pensions? In the 1980s, workers, particularly in the Civil Service, were circulated with a memorandum asking them whether they wished to leave their pension entitlements to a wife or husband. At that stage, long before civil partnership or anything like that, the tiny number of gay persons involved, whether couples or not, replied "No", and this reply, stating they did not want to leave their pension entitlements to husbands and wives, whom they did not have and whom at that stage they could not have, is being used to disbar them now from allocating pension entitlements to their partners. This affects only a small number of persons and, therefore, it is not a financial issue. It is merely some kind of pettifogging regulation. It is a gross injustice and should be corrected. In respect of the marriage equality referendum, it is extraordinary that the No side is still peddling the old rubbish about surrogacy and other irrelevant issues. The Referendum Commission has stated unequivocally and authoritatively that this referendum has nothing whatever to do with these issues, which were finally and effectively resolved by parliament by the passage of the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015.