Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. There is a lot of stuff going on that I would like to digest. I very much welcome the proposed change in the referendum. I welcome that the Government and the State are at a point of recognising that not all families are based on marriage, that there should not be a tier or a hierarchy of family, and that families like Senator Garvey's and mine should be acknowledged by our State and Constitution. Senator McDowell referenced the judgment passed today in a social welfare case. That is a judgment. It is jurisprudence; it is not our Constitution. I deserve to have my family acknowledged within our Constitution. I am an unmarried mother with a family. Senator McDowell's view will still be respected within the referendum. Marriage is specifically mentioned. However, there is a change with the proposed reference to durable relationships. Our families are changing. Senator McDowell can say that marriage is an institution that is recognised by the State, but durable relationships and families like mine can also be recognised. Is Senator McDowell saying that his family is a better family than mine because he accepts the duties placed upon him by the institution of marriage? Is there a hierarchy of his family against mine, which suggests that I do not take the duty of parenthood and making my home seriously, and that my partner does not do the same because we do not have a duty to do so under the institution of marriage? That is absolute rubbish. My children are well reared and well taken care of, thank God. They are not of a lower standard because they are not brought up in family under marriage. We are no less of a class of family. It is about time that the State recognised that families come in loads of different ways. It is a personal debate. I was accused previously of making this debate personal. Of course, it is personal. Family is personal; your home and your children are personal. Not to have my family and families like mine and Senator Garvey's recognised by Bunreacht na hÉireann is wrong.

When we were having the mother and baby home debates, I remember my second fella asking me what is wrong with him. I told him there is nothing wrong with him. He told me that I am not married to his daddy and asked what is wrong with him. I told him there is nothing wrong with him. There was never anything wrong with any child born out of marriage. The Constitution says that there is a hierarchy and that one family is better than the other. Senator McDowell has said that today, because apparently married people take their duties more seriously. I can tell the Senator that they certainly do not. There are plenty of married people who do not take their responsibilities and their duties seriously.