Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I promise I will do that.

In certain areas of human life, to stress the benefits of one way of doing things is seen as tantamount to causing a negative judgment of those who do not do things in a particular way. All of this is unfortunate because it is hard to deny that most credible evidence suggests that marriage has always been, for the most part, a social good and that it still is a social good. In the past, it provided women in particular with stability and protection at a time when women's equal dignity was not recognised and their equal rights denied or at least only taken into account when men's aspirations were fulfilled.Marriage is a good thing for couples. It provides them and their children with the basis for a stable family unit. It improves their lot in life, socially and economically, and this, in turn, is a good thing for the State and society as a whole. That is why it is enshrined in our law in the first place. To state these facts should not be seen as stigmatising single parents or unmarried couples with children. I have talked in recent days about evidence-based legislation. Marriage and the family is another area in which State policy is not evidence-based. It would be difficult for the Minister to deny this if he heard his predecessor, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, say during the debate on the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 that there should be no hierarchy of families in denial of the argument that public policy should encourage a situation in which each child is brought up by a father and mother and, where possible, his or her own father and mother. Without judging others, it should be a cornerstone of public policy to encourage marriage and assist those whose marriages have broken down to reconcile to the greatest extent possible while acknowledging that this will sometimes be impossible.

I hope the debate we have when the legislation comes in will be very different to the debate we have had on the referendum proposal. This referendum proposal merely gives the Legislature the power to change the situation. During the debate which has taken place so far, there has been no discussion of children's welfare and no discussion about whether we should have public information campaigns on the importance of marriage and greater Government investment in pre-marriage courses. I will finish very shortly but I compare it to-----