James Heffernan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

In respect of the referendum last Friday, this House has a very proud history of debating civil and human rights, civil liberty and equality issues. This Seanad has justified the need for this House. I sincerely congratulate Senator Norris, the father of this House, who has been here for many years, and Senator Zappone.

While we have fantastic debaters and a fantastic debate on marriage equality took place in this Chamber, the real debate took place in our homes with our families, where people thrashed out the issues. Irish people came to the conclusion we would stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with our aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, friends and neighbours to show them this is a welcome, open and free society that has a very proud history of standing up for what is right. In some parts of the world, people are put to death because of their sexuality. This vote has made us a beacon of hope to other parts of the world. I spoke to gay friends in Australia, Bahrain and Germany who are over the moon with this result and could not thank the Irish people enough. We have broken the chains of repression in that 1937 document, written by de Valera and McQuaid.Travelling around my own constituency, I noticed a huge change. I went to de Valera's home town of Bruree and could see the spring in people's step when they were leaving the ballot box. They knew they were making a serious change. To paraphrase a former Member, repressive Ireland is now dead and gone and is with McQuaid in the grave, and romantic Ireland is definitely making a huge comeback.

A major feature of this campaign has been the influence of social media, and the hashtag I saw on the morning of the referendum, #hometovote, really blew me away. We saw our emigrants, who cannot vote from abroad, putting their holiday funds into coming home to exercise their democratic right.