David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a brief comment. First, I compliment the Minister. I am just back from London, where I received an award from the Foreign Office. The ceremony was attended by various Ministers of the British Government and people like Ed Miliband and the former leader of the Scottish National Party. The House will be glad to hear of the tremendous tributes paid to the Government and political parties here and to the Minister for the work that has been done on this issue. People were quite enthusiastic about the referendum having been passed.

On section 5, during Second Stage I spoke about degrees of relationship, affinity and so on and so forth and said it would not bother me if cousins married. I mentioned the "grotesque" Irish media and, true to form, they took the bait and my office is now deluged with requests for me to go on air and to talk to the newspapers about this, apparently blissfully unaware that cousins can already marry. I was not proposing incest or anything of that nature, but a big deal has been made of my comment on cousins marrying. The Minister may not have realised this either, because she said she would look into the situation. It is a fairly remote situation.

When I was speaking, I was not promoting incest. All I was saying was that it would not bother me if cousins married. I was thinking of some of the remote regulations of the Anglican church, which forbade this in the past. In addition, the marriage of cousins is not generally socially popular, but it is legal. Therefore, I will not go on any radio station or talk to the newspapers on this issue. It is all perfectly all right. People can relax. Cousins will be able and have been able to marry each other. They have been able to marry each other for decades. The media should grow up, get some sense and stop stirring up mares' nests. I am not in favour of incest and never have been and I look forward to a debate on this interesting subject later.

I am very happy with section 5 and any residual doubts I had have been clarified.